Yes we've got Donald Trump, and Deutsche Bank had Justice Kennedy's son as a sort of personal liason with The Donald. Funny how capitalism works, innit?
https://www.businessinsider.com/anthony-kennedy-son-loaned-president-trump-over-a-billion-dollars-2018-6
Deutsche Bank loaned President Donald Trump over $1 billion for his real-estate projects while Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's son led a real-estate division there, The New York Times reported Thursday.
1
No, socialism can't give us Trump.
It's guaranteed to give us Trump^2.
5
Ironically also set in Chicago, the chutzpah of a coworker setting out to bedazzle our chief officer with, shall we say delicately, her feminine charms. And then sueing him for sexual harrassment at what she perceives as his lascivious leer directed toward her irresistable upper body. All in the name of #metoo. Oh, she's defaulted on two house notes while her compulsive gambling spouse goes through every available cent as he has for years, promising to come home one night a millionaire. She too, like Trump, has political ambitions: to become the reigning Queen of Foreclosure Park...
4
Thank goodness, Ms Collins, you kept the "...copy of that column with an arrow pointing to my picture, on which he had written 'the face of a pig'", after you had pilloried him for being,
possibly, just a mere 'thousandaire'. He may eventually prove to be even less than a thousandaire. Karma may out.
5
Socialism is a 4 letter word. Deal with it. Wash your mouth out and drop the subject. Talk about more important things.
Deutsche Bank's rap sheet is long. They lent money used to build Auschwitz and acted as the banker to the Gestapo, they have done business with Syria, Burma, and Iran, violating sanctions in the process, they helped Russians launder $10 billion, they were a big player in the Libor manipulation scandal, and they did plenty of shady things with subprime mortgages in the run up to the financial crisis. The banking industry is not known for morals, but even by those low standards, DB stands out.
7
So when the economy tanks on January 20, 2021 and there's a Democrat in the White House I wonder who the republicans will blame. You guessed it, everybody's favorite Kenyan, Barak Obama. (BTW that's sarcasm)
4
To be fair. Capitalism couldn't give us....
Marx
Engels
Lenin
Trotsky
Stalin,
Castro
Mao
Mussolini
Franco
The free-market would not allow any of these leaders to ever take power let alone keep it
1
People seem to be as stupid as Deutsche Bank or Donald Trump
when it comes to defining economic systems. Or maybe the stupid people are the ones who believe the Donald Trumps or the Deutsche Banks. Is it Capitalism to loan other people's money to someone who won't pay it back? Is it Socialism to not do that? What should we call a system that allows for a Donald Trump or a Deutsche Bank?
3
The elite love socialism. For themselves. But definitely not for you.
And, everything Trump says about others is actually about himself.
3
News of the day: Bankers can be even more stupid and gullible than the average "man in the street".
5
Ha ha! Socialism couldn't give us Trump, but Trump certainly could give us socialism. When the poor class (yes, that's where we're all going) gets fed up with in-your-face capitalism they will start demanding socialism, and we will owe it all to Trump!
1
Ms. Collins,
Really, you actually got Mr. Trump to look up from his gold plated trough long enough to call you a pig?
Projection is such a powerful tool, don’t you agree?
Thanks for the article.
7
the reason trump makes capitalism look bad is because most people dont understand what real free market capitalism is, and what is socialism in its various forms is. the facts are that free market capitalism doesnt much exist in the US any more. there is too much government regulation, and subsidization for the economy to be called free market capitalism. that hasnt stopped the republicans from claiming that they are the true defenders of free market capitalism, and that the democrats are all socialists. in fact the opposite is true. For the last 30 or 40 years its the republicans that have been moving us steadily towards a socialist state. But the socialism they are purveying is National Socialism, or as it was known in WW2, fascism. Trump and the republicans may claim to be defenders of capitalism but they are fascists, and of course trump is an autocrat to boot. So when the article claims that trump gives capitalism a bad name what is really being demonstrated is a complete lack of understanding what capitalism is.
2
Personally, I think you have a wonderful smiling face and a very sharp wit. Something like that would be hard to say about 45* as he is a nincompoop, rarely smiles, and never laughs.
Ordinary Americans that miss paying off small debts get hounded by collection agencies and get nicked on their credit reports that can last for years.
When those same Americans file for bankruptcy, they are treated like lepers by creditors; then some have to resort to payday lenders. The under-tow can sweep up family members into having to resort to petty crimes, substance abuse, prostitution and other shady dealings, witch becomes a gateway into our ‘wonder-full’ criminal justice system — a remnant of slavery.
The the Department of Irony should ask questions swirling about how Deutsche bank operates and should investigate them here and abroad.
3
When you are looking to convert ill-gotten gains into "legit" cash, you'll loan it to anybody willing to do your dirty work. So what if the risk is large. You've got a handy partner and I imagine the profit margin covers your losses.
Trump's Assets
minus
Trump's Liabilities
equal
Negative Net Worth
He is not even a thousandaire, Gail. He is an empty vessel.
5
Anat Admati, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, was shocked-- SHOCKED! -- that “a corporation the size and complexity of Deutsche Bank is so poorly governed.” For God's sake, what country's economic system has this professor been studying for her career? Sweden's? Certainly not the US's.
1
Gail, you are the best!
Gail, Trump's note to you reconfirms his enormous insecurity and childish reactions to anything he considers a slight. President Baby.
1
The way e orders ewxecutives to keep plants open is very socialistic (and authoritarian).
I'll take Trump over Venezuela's Maduro any day. If the columnist had tried to publish a similar column on Maduro, she would be sitting in prison next to hundreds of journalists in opposition to the Socialist regime.
Oh, but you Do have Socialism in America, but it is Coporate Socialism, a system that bailed out Wall St. and all those banks too enmeshed within the system (sorry, big) to fail. The meltdown in 2008, and all the chat about moral hazard, made that so clear. While citizens may not have confidentce in the system, we must have confidence in the banks.
And, supposedly we may have another meltdown soon because of some people's need to loosen pesky regulations. But no worries, those sloppy corporate welfare bums will get another government handout.
I am more of a financial genius than Trump is. I lived on disability income alone for over 20 years and was able to save money on it. I own my home and car and have no debt beyond this month's bills, which are always paid on time. That's more than Trump can say.
8
Want to prove Trump's disdain for socialism and breaking his campaign promise of protecting Medicare? Just look at his proposed budget, which virtually guts Medicare. Trump's brand of capitalism is capitalizing on bankruptcy by receiving protection from his creditors (how many construction workers were never compensated for work on Trump's buildings?).
3
I lived a Trump-free life before 2016. I noted with shock the Tribune story about his decision to suspend the discount extended to buyers of condos in the Chicago tower before construction began. Sales had picked up so he reneged on his offer. I didn't know how he could do that and survive, but he did. He won an architectural award for the quality of the building skin. But he ruined the building by putting his name in outsized letters on it. I avert my eyes and crop the building out of photos I share showing the bridge and river.
3
It's so weird to me. My image of German capitalists in general is of a cautious, consensus-minded bunch. And none more cautious and conservative than the bankers.
A German bank opens a subsidiary in New York and immediately goes crazy! Is it something in the water?
1
Medicare for all is not "socialism." The government does not own the hospitals and doctors' offices and doesn't employ the doctors and nurses. They are all private businesses. That's not "socialism." Medicare for all is a true "America first" policy, not Trump's phony "America first" baloney.
Why is that when taxpayer dollars are used to bomb other countries to smithereens and then rebuild them, which profits greedy corporations, it's just business as usual but anything that helps our people is "socialism?"
6
Who won the cold war? Not the US...nor did Russia. Had we won the cold war Russia would be a democratic capitalist country instead of a kleptocracy with fake elections.
The Soviets held on to its failed extreme version of communism to the bitter end and we are dong the same thing just in the other extreme. Extreme free market capitalism.
Social Democracy is someplace in the middle of these two failed ideologies. We have been living with modest forms of socialism for almost 80 years. As long as we cling to this failed ideology of extreme capitalism we will wind up in the same kleptocracy Russia is mired in. Just look at what this administration is doing. No different than what Putin and his thugs re doing.
3
This doesn't move the needle at all. Trumpers love that trump thumbs his nose at the establishment. And probably some liberals think banks deserve whatever they get with no one being prosecuted by a democratic congress during the Great Recession and banks like Wells Fargo behaving so abominably.
1
I still think Deutsche Bank had collateral interests outside the Trump relationship -Eastern Europe and Russia oligarchs with a history of being Trump cozy.
1
"Well, Socialism Couldn't Give Us Trump"
Why not? It gave Germany Hitler. NAZI = National Socialist German Workers Party.
2
@Penseur
They are all playing with words. The word "socialism" has so many different meaning that it no longer means anything definite; it is easily used to deceive or frighten people.
3
@Fran: It is a word with many meanings that can be twisted to deceive. That is precisely my point.
Gail, I would look at your picture and write, "The face of an angel."
93
@Joan1009
A really really smart and funny angel. A total 10.
11
Great exposure of the naked emperor, who just is not our kind of guy. His frequent resort to the “S” word is a dull-witted diversionary tactic that unfortunately has worked in the past to retard progress. Perhaps in the 21st century it may not because of this persistent AOC and Beto thing called reform of the plutocracy.
1
Gail, you can tell that "face of a pig" story as many times as you like. It just really says it all.
5
I will now pretend to be shocked that Capitalists can irresponsible gits with other peoples money, and their own:
Oh No! I'm So Shocked! Who knew that Capitalism could be just as inefficient and prone to corruption and fraud as... any other system created and operated by human beings??!!!! Just Shocked I Tell You!!!!!!
I will now return to not being surprised by the depth and expanse of human stupidity...
2
Yeah those German bankers sure are dumb. All we Americans did was elect him president.
4
Great editorial Gail!
Thousandaire indeed. A thousandaire with a paper thin ego.
3
Socialism and Tyson? Really??
So cliche for political hand wringing.
And hey, the photo with column: did you notice the “trump” name is a full 2 stories tall? How absurd.
2
Capitalism is like fire. Fire can be an extremely useful tool, which in primitive times, thousands of years ago, allowed the caveman to cook food and keep his shelter warm. In modern times, fire is important in manufacturing, industries like steel have to melt metal etc. But as good a thing as fire can be, it can also destroy, by burning down your house, if not properly controlled on your stovetop. The problem with the Republican/Conservative view of capitalism today is that they are totally against any financial regulations, no matter how small. They want a Darwinism type of economic system, survival of the fittest, the weak just die off, no social safety net for the poor, unemployed, elderly, retired or middle class (the vast majority of people). The GOP claims there is no money for infrastructure spending to repair and maintain or roads, bridges and tunnels and power grids, etc, but they just passed a $1.5 Trillion dollar tax cut where 80% of the benefits go to corporations and the richest 1%. Capitalism as a socio-economic system would work much better if it is reasonably regulated and controlled, a more fair and progressive tax system, laws that protect consumers, a strong labor/union movement to counter management and the owners of capital. Forced arbitration clauses, upheld by courts, is the newest thing that is stacking the deck against average people and favors corporations and the rich. Unrestrained capitalism, like uncontrolled fire, is burning everything down now.
7
@Seymore When reforms are made, capital has a way of watering down or negating them sometime later. After all, money rules government and Congress under the capitalist model. The big fight, except which God is right(assuming there is one) is should capital rule government or vice versa.
1
How has this clown not been Tarred and Feathered and chased out of town? Inquiring minds what to know!
1
The photo at the top of the article reminds us once again: is there anything more pathetic than the need of a creepy crawly narcissist to erect a big ugly building emblazoned with his name? Perhaps this brassy, in-your-face structure is a less nauseating form of exhibitionism than exposing one's silly genitals [perhaps orange, in this case], but oh how it screams out "please please pay attention to me and my incredible prowess!" If you are asking, Herr Trump, whether this shows how rich and smart you are, the answer is "Nein."
1
A rose by any other name, in Trump's world, is NOT a rose.
So we can upgrade Social Democracy to Moral Democracy or Mo-Demo' for short.
Witchhunt! Witchhunt! Witchhunt! Mo-demo'! Mo-demo'! Mo-Demo'!
Can we see that photo?
Does this mean you will never be able to compete in the Miss Universe contest?
I'm not sure. Given Mr. Trump's own porcine visage, it's possible he was actually hitting on you with his face-of-a-pig notation.
I would be careful not to get into an elevator with the man.
Not even an escalator. Even an escalator which is going downward, or de-escalating.
One can only imagine what he has sent to Ms. Pia Guerra, whose Trump cartoons are the only thing which keeps me sane.
“You can fool some of the people some of the time -- and that's enough to make a decent living.”
1
Can’t beat Trump at his redefinition of words to suit him. Like Humpty Dumpty, according to Trump “When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less”
And maybe also, when Trump falls off his Wall “all the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put him together again”.
1
Republicans never worry about socialism spreading it's evil tentacles when it benefits Republican party voters. Republicans just use a variety of different nomenclature to describe their socialism. Farmers don't get welfare checks they participate in crop subsidy and price support programs.
5
Why do we need socialism? We've got Trump, Pence and their whole cast of crooks to ruin our country. What a sad commentary!
3
The way I see it, the BANKERS are the fools for doing business with him, the AMERICAN PEOPLE are the guilty of permitting a system to develop that resulted in electing him, and TRUMP HIMSELF is the pig and not you, Gail, not only for sending that letter to you but for simply being the thieving liar and cheat that all DECENT people know him to be.
The next election will be about socialism because the Democratic Party has become much more socialistic. Socialism means greater taxes for everyone (Warren Buffet is not going to pay for all of it). In exchange for more of our tax dollars the government promises more equality and greater living standards for more people.
Some people are naive enough to believe that promise (liberals), others have come to see such promises as unrealistic if not disingenuous (conservatives). The US government runs massive deficits, is overly influenced by special interests, if it is not wasting money on social programs that perpetuate poverty it wastes money on the military.
So yes, Trump is wise to raise the "S-word" and slap that label on anyone who runs against him. Too bad more of us are not wise enough to reject the notion that the government can fix all of our problems. Too bad we don't demand a leader who is more realistic and practical. That type of leader could beat Trump, the Warrens and Sanders of the world don't stand a chance.
Deutsche Bank got what they deserve. They were probably to embarrassed to admit how stupid they were to let the American people know what a fraud Donald Trump is about his financial wealth.
It amazing Trump got away with his facade of being a billionaire for so long.
I would love to see Trump go to jail, but it will never happen, sadly.
Any Democratic leader asked by the media whether they are capitalist or socialist should respond by saying that all Republican leaders and the party is socialist, in that they use government to benefit the wealthy over everyone else, and that is socialism, the corporate kind. Right? Then they should say that if Republicans truly want to get rid of socialism they should stop using the government to benefit the wealthy and business, and truly make it a "free market" where people and companies rise and fall on their own merits.
Weaponizing socialism and socialist policies will be instrumental in Trump's re election. The Bernie crowd needs to sharpen debating skills and tweet staff.
2
My goofy dog could debate circles around Trump, but it wouldn’t matter to his followers. They always find a way to excuse his stupidity.
2
Once again this year all the usual suspect Nordic "socialist" countries rank at the top of the world happiness report. That includes both natives and immigrants in those countries. Despite all its wealth, the US ranks 20 out of 40.
Socialism for the 1% gave us the Grump-in-Chief we have today.
5
It's refreshing to hear someone screaming "socialized medicine!" as practiced in other countries. If Medicare and Medicaid were abolished in this country, medicine would be practiced the old fashioned way; those with some money could choose "your money or your life" medical care, while those without would have "Get sick? Die quick".
3
Neither Trump, nor his base, even know how to spell socialism, much less know what it even means. But, maybe they are just an angry hate party and being anti-social fuels their sex drives.
2
The rich and the powerful can be as dumb as the poor and the weak, just that the rich can hire people to make their mistakes look like brilliance, ala Trump.
2
Alas, once again we see that a sucker is born every minute, including at Deutsche Bank.
1
German banks funding a crypto-facist?
You’re surprised?
1
The word “deplorable” should not be applied to those who voted for Trump. It is however a word that describes the political world in the United States where 40% of the population are so poorly educated they cannot see through the fraudulent Trump. He has been a con artist all of his life.
The 24/7 extreme right wing propaganda machine call Fox “News” has helped to convert Trumpists into religious zealots who cannot tell truth from lies nor right from wrong. They are joined by true religious zealots who place the overturning of Roe v. Wade ahead of every other moral issue.
Logic and facts cannot sway Trumpists who excuse his ignorance and racism out of hand. They are lost to the rational world. No matter what the Mueller report reveals Trumpists will shrug it off as “fake”. No Democrat will ever attract their votes.
If Democrats cannot draw in moderate independents with a well designed platform and charismatic leaders, then Trumpists will continue to drag this country into the dark fascist abyss where Trumpism thrives.
3
Mike Pence on socialism is like listening to Billy Graham on Foucault.
He’s ignernt as they say in southern Indiana.
4
Gail Collins is one of the most entertaining TruthTellers around.
2
No it was not socialism. It was bigotry, stupidity, and a reckless disregard for decency. Not to mention an archaic system for selecting a president.
2
My lord, will anybody explain to these idiots that NOBODY is trying to take their capitalism away. Sweden, Norway, Germany, France ... these are all capitalist countries.
SOME SOCIALISM IS REQUIRED TO MAKE CAPITALISM SUSTAINABLE - Otherwise you get run-away inequality - as we now see in the U.S.
Could this message be any simpler????
10
Pence is the kind of Christian like the Papal rep who approved of the massacre of the Cathars. He’s a nasty piece of work who knows very well that capitalism without social controls is just the most powerful taking as much as they can and destroying anyone who competes with them. He just hasn’t any conscience. He’s much worse than Trump because he’s not as ignorant as Trump.
3
"Whenever the government provides opportunities and privileges for white people and rich people they call it ‘subsidies.’ When they do it for Negro and poor people they call it ‘welfare.’ The fact is that everybody in this country lives on welfare. Suburbia was built with federally subsidized credit. And highways that take our white brothers out to the suburbs were built with federally subsidized money to the tune of ninety percent. Everybody is on welfare in this country. The problem is that we all too often have socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise capitalism for the poor. That’s the problem."
--Martin Luther King Jr.
222
Yes, news flash: Trump is utterly corrupt. What does this story have to do with socialism or capitalism?
1
@Robert
Certain conservatives like to throw out that socialism always leads to corruption and down fall.
They don't tell you that capitalism too can lead to corruption and down fall.
They ignore that many of our best functioning countries are currently a blended economy of Cap 'n Soc.
Just as America is. It just needs to rebalance the Cap 'n Soc.
Trump is the pinnacle of capitalism. He is also crooked as the day is long.
4
do you refer to the same Deutche Bank that has been fined for laundering Russian money and has acted as a financial pipeline from the Kremlin to the West? or, is this their Americn doppleganger?
5
Ms. Collins always gets us to laugh at the travails of life and politics, when we would otherwise be crying or screaming. But in reality, Trump and Deutsche Bank are small players in the world of finance, propelled into the limelight by Trump’s improbable election.
What is hard to laugh off is the utter greed and stupidity of so many developers, bankers, rating agencies, brokers and Wall Street moguls who have periodically wreaked havoc on our financial system. In the last generation alone, that team of idiots brought us the collapse of the savings and loan industry, the tech bust recession and of course the Great Recession.
I am reminded of Jamie Dimon’s Congressional testimony when he recalled his daughter asking him what a financial crisis was. He thought she was seeking his wise insight; no, Jamie...she was wondering if you had a clue what your industry had done.
83
The main narrative of Marxism was that citizens had to first fully experience capitalism to reject it. So far history gave us the opposite. Be it the old Soviet Union, Poland or Venezuela the socialist state is what comes to an inevitable end. But there is no religion as persistent as the Church of Marx in America and the latest promised land vision is that of Norway and Denmark. (About 4 million people each and both trying to protest that there are not socialists at all.)
Only true immunization against Marxism is to suffer a bout of it. Nothing would cure our population like an all hands victory by the progressive left and period of governance that would follow. I am starting to think it would be worth it.
@Just Saying
Venezuela isn't/wasn't a socialist country. 73% of its business is/was private. It's attempt at socialism was because capitalism was failing the majority. Its capitalistic gov. was corrupt it's people attempted to fix it.
It worked for awhile and bettered the lives of millions. But it was based upon Petrol and the bottom fell out of said market. (with the help of some other countries...)
Our current capitalism as practice here has left 64% not being able to afford a $1000 emergency. 40% can't come up with $400.
How are YOU/capitalism going to fix this?
If you/we don't change something, We The People will attempt change ourselves. The warning signs and bells 'n whistles have been going off for decades now. Yet capitalistic leaders do nothing.
What is your fix/answer.
7
Does the term money-laundering ring a bell? Of course the bank could loan out Russian money and then right off the default.
5
With all due respect to Bernie Sanders, using the word "socialist" to identify your politics in the United States even it is preceded by "democratic" is just fodder for the GOP/Trump/FoxNews. The Democrats should avoid the label if all they mean is support for Medicare for all, improved Social Security, and fair regulation of business to protect workers, consumers, and all living things. Democratic socialists in Canada and Europe are essentially progressives and aren't looking to abolish capitalism.
6
Capitalism has reached its inevitable, massive income inequality, dead end with the accession of the GOP and the anointment of Trump. It is time to revise it and re-regulate it massively or to chuck it completely, because the corrupt crony corporate casino capitalism we have now is anathema to a democratic republic. Social security, socialized medicine, and social programs are immeasurably superior to the privatized gain/socialized loss corporate welfare state, epitomized by Trump's deals with Deutsche Bank, that we prop up now. It is time to repeal the tax cuts for the 1% and the corporate giveaways handed out over the past 50 years in the name of Reagonomics, compassionate conservatism, Third Way, Libertarianism, religious exemptions, Ayn Randian fantasies, deficit-busting Paul Ryan budgets, etc, etc. It is time to make the country and the government work for 99% of the people rather than having 99% of the people AND the government working for the 1%.
7
We had all the information we needed to conclude that Trump was a master of "creative bankruptcy" i.e. the art of borrowing with no intention of paying back loans and letting others suffer the losses while he retains the assets. His "base" admires him for this.
How far has the United States fallen? Can we ever recover?
9
My God! If any doubts remained (how?) that the NY Times has long ceased to be a serious newspaper, Gail Collins put them to rest. How dare she compare the deeds of Donald Trump to the horrors of socialism?
Gail Collins is either stone cold ignorant of what socialism is and what socialism did during that nightmare century, the 20th, and now in Venezuela, or she does not care. Which is to say, either she is an idiot or a monster. And the NY Times publishes her.
What a travesty!
@Haim you really do need to look up social democracy which is what Bernie and GAIL support as opposed to state owned socialism as in Venezuela.
We already are a very socialist country. To list a few socialist things: schools, roads, libraries, police, fire fighters, the armed forces, ensuring our foods, flights and waterways are safe, the money we give to farmers and other agricultural business, the money we give to banks that go bust.
Oh yeah, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And if you’re not on any of these, trust me, you will love having them and praise socialism up and down as I do at 66.
9
@Haim funny how you mention Venezuela, but not Finland, Denmark, Canada et al. Socialism, with a bit of capitalism thrown in, works. You just have to want it to.
5
I allus admire these little tirades from folks who somehow have the notion that none of us lib’ruls ever done heard of Solzhenitsyn (have you, by the way?) and scuttle about trying to cover up for capitalism like, to borrow Robert Heinlein’s great similie, a cat trying to cover up on a tile floor.
Or to put this another way, you might wanna consult with the shades of tens of millions of native Americans, millions of slaves, tens of millions of miners and workers, and hundreds of millions of war victims and Holocaust dead before waxing quite so smughly happy about the niftiness of capitalism.
4
Better socialism than white nationalist fascism.
11
Trump is actually a shining example of socialism--socialism for the rich and famous, rugged individualism for the rest of us.
16
If Gail ever gives up writing her NYT column she has a future on “60 Minutes.”
Well, Deutsche Bank was sucked in by Trump, or at least his front men. It’s pretty hard to believe Deutsche Bank’s private wealth managers got a coherent story from Trump himself, or that he stayed on topic in a one-on-one. So I’ll credit Trump’s minions, not Trump.
And the GOP let Trump become their candidate. In this case, unlike Deutsche Bank, they saw the real Trump very clearly, and were governed by belief in the stupidity of Republican voters. Correct judgement, but a bit short-term in its thinking.
7
Any 'ism is only as effective and corrupt-free as those charged with implementing it.
We are challenged, as a society, to be ethical. It doesn't get any more complicated.
The power-mad, and that would include greedy men and women, so far mostly men since that's the gender that, historically, been running things, always screw things up.
Socialism vs Capitalism? Socialism is, when devoid of a 'power-mad leadership,' is a gentler more inclusive approach to organizing society.
Socialism as a campaign hot point is a sign the debate is now center-stage and that implies momentum in the direction of socialism. Otherwise, it wouldn't be an issue.
7
Ah yes that great big scary Socialism. And all those evil, Lenin looking, American liberals. We will not stand for that. But let's stop for a minute and ask ourselves where exactly did the socialist policies we currently know and love come from? Where did all those nasty, economy stifling regulations come from? Thin air? No they actually came from unbridled Capitalism. Wide income inequality. Filthy air and water. Dangerous products on the market. Lack of a social safety net. Lack of accountability for the wealthy and corporations. So we speed up the reversal of the course the ship has been taking for decades. No need to worry the conditions that led to the social programs and the regulations might come back. That would never, ever happen again. Big money has learned their lesson. Imagine, for a second what America would be like today if things like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security never existed and we had never demanded corporations stopped selling things like DDT, thalidomide, and we never punished oil companies for spills and so on. I guess if social programs and regulation never existed Americans would all be millionaires now and the planet would be so very clean and safe for all it's residents. Now those damned Socialist Democrats are going to ruin it for all of us. Like they did before.
8
The entire "Socialism" vs. "Capitalism" argument is a truly misleading. These are theories. They are not applications. Neither has ever existed in their true form.
If you want a pure capitalist society, then you have to remove rules that affect the risk-reward calculation. That would require elimination of the federal reserve. Managed monetary systems are hardly pure capitalism.
You would also have to eliminate limited liability. That would require getting rid of the corporate and LLC forms of ownership. I don't see anyone getting on board with that.
What the alleged capitalists ignore is that it isn't only government that affects the marketplace. It is large corporations. They too shift the field, and often do it quicker and more effectively than governments do.
We have a hybrid economy. We will always have a hybrid economy. The question is who does it get managed for. Currently, we manage it for the benefit of about 1% of the population. The next 10 to 15% get some benefit. But if they think its managed for them, then they are delusional. Everyone else is screwed. This isn't capitalism. Its aristocracy.
There are two methods of breaking up aristocracies. The French, which was revolution and Madame Guillotine. The other is the English which used taxation. Take your pick.
9
I love all the existing forms of socialism that the respondents to Gail's column are listing. However, I have not run across that paragon and long-established American socialist institution as of yet: the Public Library.
4
Neither have they, it would seem.
1
Repubs buzzword of the year: Socialism. They have to latch on to something goobs know about.
PS, didn't Deutsche Bank have another famous client, the Russian mob/gov't? And didnt they need to wash their money?
8
In the reality show called USA, I think it's time to vote Donald off the island.
7
I’m reminded of the movie, “Rosalie Goes Shopping” starring the wonderful Marianne Sagebrecht.
Set in Arkansas, the wife of a crop duster pilot finds herself so buried in debt, she concludes the only way out is to go so deep that if she goes down, so does the bank, obliging the bank to cover for her. It works.
2
here it is financial crimes. overstated values. not paying it back. wow what a CIC we have. i wouldn.t loan him a cup of water.
3
Our problem is not capitalism vs. socialism. Our problem is that the Republican Party are prostitutes, for sale to the highest bidder.
8
Oh, I hope you framed that article!
1
I'm not surprised that the Republican Party would use the purported evils of socialism a central theme of its 2020 campaign--after all that and suppressing labor unions have been its main organizing principles ever since it abandoned and then repudiated its original admirable goal of replacing slavery with a modicum of racial equality and justice. But I will be surprised if this tired old war horse they plan to bring out from their stable of campaign lies and deceptions is able to beat a Democrat donkey to the finish line in 2020, provided the Dems don't go all squeamish, apologetic or defensive about the "S-word". If the Dems can embrace the term by pointing to the facts, inter alia, that socialism is essentially an expression of the core message of Jesus; and that socialist measures were necessary beginning in the 1930s in the USA to mitigate the harshness of capitalism, in that without socialist laws and programs--e.g., progressive income taxation, Social Security, Medicare, etc.--most of the elderly, disabled, unemployed and other poor would have to be unfed, homeless, and without any means of subsistence. As bad as the income and wealth disparity is today, it would be exponentially worse but for socialism. If Dems can get that message out unapologetically, indeed proudly, they should have little to fear from the socialist boogeyman.
5
the original Republicans were for replacing slavery with a new system in which the slaves were liberated, still worked for nothing, but now had to pay for their own food and shelter. their policies have changed very little down to our own time.
3
@Pottree: I agree; that's why I used the term "modicum". Moreover, I think the Republicans' passing of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments qualifies as a "modicum of racial equality of justice" even if their Reconstruction efforts were far too anemic and forgiving of the South.
It is a common story everywhere. One fanous guy called Vijay Malya did similar adventures and then ran away to UK to keep enjoying good life. Back home the ruling politicians (self declared Chowkidaars or guards) kept feigning anger on the issue.
The vast majority of people do not know what socialism comprises.
Oh yeah, Social Security.
1
Dear American people , since you hate socialism and despise the word "socialist" so much. Please advocate to your lawmakers to do away with social security, medicare, medicaid, food stamps, WIC, NIC ( subsidized child care for low income families), K-12 education because these are all government run programs aka socialist programs.
2
Despite this witty piece about another incidence of El Presidente Grande abusing every institution and person he comes in contact with, I'm afraid that it may just give Democrats the erroneous idea that it's somehow okay now to use the WORD "socialist" or "Socialism" when promoting our policies or candidates.
While programs are a great idea when they're undertaken for the Social Good rather than economic benefit of the lucky winners of the money rat race, the use of that WORD when describing them is a sure way to lose another national election.
I'm afraid it will be at least another generation, if ever, that the word will ever be accepted in free countries. Too many people still recall recent history when Socialist was the official name of the parties of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin. Even the Scandinavians, who have many fine social programs, call themselves "Social Democrats" instead of the other poisoned word.
Get another word or lose another election. Period.
At least now we have an antimated definition of a national disaster on display for all to see.
1
10 happiest countries in the world
Finland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada, Australia, you get the point. SOCIALISM works. And the 10 unhappiest? TYRANT LED COUNTRIES.
8
Oh, no, another column using the hook of "Socialism", whatever that means-- then veering away to .....more Trump junk piled higher & deeper. But cute as usual, Gail.
For once what about using valuable NYT op ed space to explain how what we call 'socialism' has worked in this world?
Where, when, how, under what rules? That is, socialism for the citizen majority, not for the financial elites.
What about regulated capitalism? Regulated by elected govts. Not corporations and big money doing the regulating of government--that we stand in line to elect. Where is Representation for Our Taxation? Is that a cute phrase, Gail?
Many of us are totally fed up with more Trump junk, day and night in the media.
This column has 1 cute line about health care for all.
God forbid, Gail Collins or any NYTimes columist could actually grapple with how dozens of other capitalist democracies have actually funded affordable health care for all, regardless of income, job status or health condition---for generations already. And with support of all citizens! Don't keep that dark.
Why the media black- out on so many crucial data examples, that could clarifiy this issue for manipulated US voters?
The American 'free press', pushes endless stories that are a Political Reality TV series---on Tsar Trump and his unethical, exploitive financial situation. We know already.
Does the NYT call this informing voters on issues affecting our lives? The reason for a 'free press'? Or what?
3
Gail, you had a lot of nerve picking on that poor little “financially embattled thousandaire.” He'll hate you forever.
Just like he hates Meghan McCain, who was equally nervy in pointing out that, “No one will ever love you the way they loved my father…."
The truth hurts blowhard failures like Trump, and must be denied immediately. Especially when it comes from women.
Except when the woman is Stormy Daniels. Trump has been amazingly quiet about her slyly referring to his "unusual" friend …. Mario. He really does hate being laughed at.
3
Gail, since you mentioned DB I must ask:
How can the flow of money at DB which was being laundered for the Russians match up with Trump loans? Is there any connection? Or did the Russians just go straight to Trump with no middle man?
And what about the role played by DB employee Justin Kennedy?
Did Trump promise that he would direct the DOJ to keep away from Justin Kennedy in their investigation into DB in exchange for his father Justice Kennedy retiring? The Justice Kennedy gave Trump the golden goose and got his two law clerks on the SC.
Was there such a back room deal?
Trump is the poster child for capitalism run wild with greed. And the GOP wants to keep it that way. Any check or balance or desired correction will be labeled as the evil 'socialism' by the GOP. Good government for the welfare and betterment of the people runs in direct opposition to the GOP every man for himself, it's your fault your sick so shut up. Unless of course you want to blame all people of color for all crime and being lazy moochers.
2
If you enjoy screaming “Lock her up” about a woman who has no evidence of criminal wrongdoing against her, you’re not going to care about (or understand) these sort of details, defaults, a German bank, blah blah. He makes you happy because he keeps you angry.
If only Trump had been PT Barnum’s son. He would have made his father so proud.
3
Gail, you should write a column about Marvin Roffman, the analyst Trump had fired by Janney Montgomery for (presciently) predicting the bond defaults and bankruptcy of Trump's casinos.
2
Tom
St.Paul | Pending Approval
Messaging people. Somebody please get a Frank Lunz linguist on our side. I know one, George Laikoff .
Example:
Medicare-For-All
When candidate is asked
"isn't that socialism and how will that actually work ?"
Answer: "Well, you know Medicare right? Just extend it to everyone."
Next question.
"Are you a socialist?"
Answer: "if you mean USSR socialist..no, if you mean in the American tradition of ROOSEVELT socialism, then yes I'm that kind of "socialist". You know the kind The Greatest Generation elected four times and brought us the golden age of the middle class"
Next question
5
Whenever someone attacks socialism, s/he screams: "Think of Stalin's gulags," and all people of good intention immediately become defensive ("Yes, that was bad, but how about Norway?!"). Instead, every time somebody advocates for capitalism, we should say: "What about the Congo Free State?" or "What about the Holocaust?" While this might at first seem childish, it is the only way to change the conversation toward the fact that the crimes of capitalism dwarf the undeniably crimes committed by Marxists. Playing only defense will never allow us to move the Overton window.
2
The kind of socialism that Trump is really in step with is National Socialism. Last week he explained who would become his storm troopers, e.g. the military, the police, bikers for trump, etc., should there be any attempt to remove him from office by impeachment or by the vote of the vast majority at the polls who want their country back.
MAGA hats have replaced arm bands and the neo-Nazi salute is filmed at his "rallies" by those very fine people.
Time to read some history and understand the difference between democratic socialism and hate driven fascism and government by gangsters and racketeers. who feel no duty to their country or to our system of government. Exhibit A: The vast majority of so called Republicans who presently hold public office, where it is party uber allis.
5
Deutsche Bank is a criminal enterprise.
https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/31/investing/deutsche-bank-us-fine-russia-money-laundering/index.html
One that appears to be sanctioned by many gov. Hand slapped with minor fines (cost of doing business) and told by our politicians to "cut it out guys!" As they stuff their purses and wallets with same said Banksters money.
Trump is simply another outlet for Russian money laundering. By a bank of last resort, after no other banks would touch him.(Ick! Who would touch him?! C'mon Stormy! What were you thinking. ICK! Don't tell me! The thought is bad enough! Put me off mushrooms for months!)
Anyhow...
Trump et al all benefit from socialism. They pocket the profits and socialize the loss. All the rich do it. It is written into our tax code by them for them. NOT FOR YOU~!
Many of the little people do benefit from socialism however.
Our farmers are being bailed out left and right from our tax dollars. As our are fellow citizens from disasters. Hi Nebraska! Our elderly, and soon to be, NEED and love Soc. Sec. Everyone can't wait to get to Medicare. To brake away from our broken HealthCare system. Socialism folks.
Our military is a huge socialistic enterprise. As is our Police and Fire Dept. You drive on socilstic highways and freeways. You infrastructure is funded thought tax payer dollars. Your sewers and plumbing. The list is endless.
It is all socialistic in it's way.
Quit being scared of a word.
The rich aren't.
6
Thank you Gail Collins. I needed that.
2
Yes, instead it gave Vladimir Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu, all the Stalinist of Eastern Europe some known as the head crushers, Ho, a million perished South Vietnamese, the Kims, Fidel, the heartthrob of the left, Che who murdered hundreds, many by his own hand, Hugo Chavez the socialist hope of Hollywood, and now Maduro favored by some of the professoriate. These are only a few, and even softer socialism such as favored among the Non-Aligned Movement, for example in India, Egypt, Algeria in the 50s and 60s brought only stagnation and shared poverty. Not to mention Britain who nearly failed until Thatcher appeared. All you have to look at is China to see why a market economy rather than politically directed “social” investment bring some wealth to all level of society, while socialism brings shared deprivation to most but nice lives to a favored political class, and usually political calamity as we saw in the socialist countries and in many so called Third World socialist ones. And by the way, Scandinavia is very openly capitalist with the means of production in private hands and no state directed investment but a high level of taxation. Even there they had to privatize many state institution such as health to prevent decline. Just look at Sweden.
“Earlier in the decade he had been in such bad shape I felt compelled to refer to him as a “financially embattled thousandaire.” Trump sent me a copy of that column with an arrow pointing to my picture, on which he had written ‘the face of a pig.’”
I don’t know why it is, given how many times I’ve seen Donald Trump be an obnoxious boor, but this story infuriates me.
1
Capitalist men are delusional. It’s all about the size of their loans and what they might have hidden in their underwear—uh, bank accounts. Whatever system Trump is in, most of US will not have what he’s having. Rape and pillage as you go is not a viable system even if Trump and his Supreme Court Trade-in Kennedy, whose son was one of Trump’s main lenders at the dreadful Deutsche Bank, choose to call it capitalism. It’s just government-sanctioned theft for dummies.
3
No, socialism didn't give us Trump; America's racism and bigotry gave us Trump. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like a bulls with nose rings - only instead of bull rings, he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants.
If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds would see the survival of a particular group of people or a belief as more important than the survival of all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
4
I did not vote for trump and hate his stupid mccain and the "tweets". But when I watch the CNN and msnbc that my wife insists on watching every night (usually reading a book) I see a bunch of "eastern elites" like this writer in a panel talking about defaults and stormy/mcdougal or stiffing plumbers or other long ago long known and adjudicated (in the polls) events with glee. This type of lazy analysis will result in a second trump term.
socialism has given the world tremendous evil.
@Joe Yoh
So has capitalism...
3
Putin was probably cosigner with Trump on Deutsche Bank loans. Kompromat...
1
Trump's Farm Subsidies to his farmer Cult Base is Socialism. Ray Sipe
1
I suspect if Trump were a Mafia don, he'd have been done away with by now. WHY IS HE STILL PRESIDENT???
3
Wow Gail Collins! You said it all with scathing wit and backed up by your usual airtight research and insights... thank you.
2
Brilliant.
Every time I hear them bring out that socialist boogie man trope, I think; "Hey GOP! The 1950s is calling."
I guess the GOP geriatric base might be frightened by the word, but they are already fan boys/girls of the white man's party.
Every time I hit a pot hole, see the plaque on a bridge that states "built by the PWP or CCC", I think; "Bring on the socialism before our infrastructure crumbles completely!"
3
Trump was hardly first or the last practitioner of strategic corporate bankruptcy. If your going to Tar and feather him for it he'll have alot of company. Witness American Airlines in 2011 which filed bankruptcy not because it was broke (it wasn't) but to get out of it's labor contract. (It did). And the man who put it into bankruptcy cam out of it with a healthy chunk of stock and bonuses. Or perhaps the Vegas casino that sold everything worthwhile to entities it controlled then filed bankruptcy. Trumps Bankruptcy is nothing new he's hardly the only practitioner. P.G. & E. ring any bells? I don't like Trump I don't like practice. But these days it's considered good business strategy not anything to ashamed of. I don't like that but it is what is. To proclaim Trump an idiot or criminal for it? Well way to many economists on both proclaimed what good business sense it was to file strategic bankruptcy and what good business they showed. And most of the actual people who put them into bankruptcy do very well. Bonuses to stay and see the company through bankruptcy and very big of chunks of stock in the new entity. No putting companies in bankruptcy to make yourself richer is very common and Trump was and is hardly unique. I don't like him him but this editorial for something that hardly raises an eyebrow anymore.
@Stephan
It points out how the system is rigged in favor of those with the money and influence to rig it. The fact that you see it as normal just shows how insidious it has become. If we don't make capitalism work for the vast majority of us it is doomed. And shrugging your shoulders because it has always been that way is another step towards that demise.
1
@wcdevins
I very specifically said I don't like it much. And it has become normal with the EXPLICIT consent of BOTH parties. Both parties signed off on the laws making it the new normal. Like it or not for all their all their sound bytes and pious the Democrats are innocent of allowing this behavior either. As for capitalism working for the majority of us?? It hasn't in my life time and I saw the fall of Saigon up close and personal. It hasn't changed in my lifetime for for the better and it isn't going to. About that I have no delusions.
1
"671 days left, 671 days left, 671 days left...please Lord, help me survive until then."
2
This story has an odd title. Socialist history is replete with kleptocrats like Trump; both Xi Jiping and Kim Jongun are good examples.
1
Jesus was a Socialist, with his clear teaching about taking care of the poor and downtrodden. His dad YHVH/G-d also is portrayed as Socialist with his demand that all you are and have and ever will be has been given by and belongs to Him, hence your obligation to return it to Him via his anointed ministers and prosperity gospel purveyors who promise that it will be returned many-fold in social benefits ... sometime in the future. (The book of Acts gives an example of what happens if you don't adhere to this demand.) Current iterations of Republicans and Evangelical Christians assure us that all this is true because Trump-Pence have been anointed by G-d to save the nation and return us to right thinking and obedience to correct dogma and religious practice. "God Bless America" (and He won't if you vote Democrat) ... and MAGA!!!
1
I’m so sick of reading and listening about Trump and his disgusting family and hangers on. All of it. He brings out the worst possible in everything he touches, including the USA. He attracts the worst people, too. There has never been a worse president or worse influence on America. He can’t open his mouth without cruelty, demeaning comments, or lies coming out like flies around you-know-what. Everything about him is the worst of everything, in every possible way. We will be lucky if the USA as we know it survives this presidency and I mean that literally. Let us pray.
3
Yes, all of this is evident. However, The Donald never took the family(which one?) on vacation with the family pet(non-existent) strapped happily to the roof of the American Truckster.
Given Trump’s financial ineptitude and incompetence,
when will the American economy implode and default. It is only a matter of time before our next economic crisis and Trump is going to manage it well? He is nothing but a hyperbolic charlatan and
crude demagogue! When will the American people and his brainwashed base and the Republican Party realize the obvious? They have been had!
3
"There have certainly been socialist disaster cases around the world..."
Ma'am, you retired the trophy with that one.
"Well, Socialism Couldn’t Give Us Trump."
Agreed. My party the Democrats could, however, give us another personality cult, i.e., a celebrity candidate without the needed experience or know-how. Let's not? By the way, I know, Gail, you are simply saying that no socialist could ever be as bad as Trump. That's true. But could we simply stop using the "S--------" word? What the Democrats want is what most Americans want. Much of it Eisenhauer (taxes, public education) and Nixon (global warming, Social Security) would have agreed with. Sweden, Denmark et al. all practice a very successful and healthy form of capitalism.
What this country needs is a president who knows how to default.
By Gail Collins
@Robert
Oops. The last few lines should have been deleted, as:
"Well, Socialism Couldn’t Give Us Trump."
Agreed. My party the Democrats could, however, give us another personality cult, i.e., a celebrity candidate without the needed experience or know-how. Let's not? By the way, I know, Gail, you are simply saying that no socialist could ever be as bad as Trump. That's true. But could we simply stop using the "S--------" word? What the Democrats want is what most Americans want. Much of it Eisenhauer (taxes, public education) and Nixon (global warming, Social Security) would have agreed with. Sweden, Denmark et al. all practice a very successful and healthy form of capitalism.
1
I can see, once again, why we were ensnared by Trump's inane antics and words during the 2016 election: He sent a copy of your column back to you with an arrow pointing at you with the nuanced comment: the face of a pig?
That's my guy. Who else does that? Well, my grandson might, but he's five-years-old. It seems childish, stupid, rude, and nuts -- because it is. When a full-growed man, a thousandaire, does it, it's funny: Man bites dog.
He is a rare case. He would be a funny character on a sitcom, maybe a businessman Archie Bunker. All in the Tower? With a beautiful blonde airhead daughter, Meathead for a son-in-law, and a bimbo wife? Nah, that's too stupid to work.
3
Come on trump supporters! It’s fun to read your contortions supporting your beloved leader.
3
I lived and worked in two socialist countries in Eastern Europe, Poland and East Germany. There was universal health care, free university education and total security. Neo Nazis could not be seen anywhere and politicians were not buffoons like Trump. There were serious economic problems but if I had to choose between living in Detroit or Warsaw I would choose Warsaw.
4
Gail you missed a significant consideration: i.e.; money laundering! Deutsche Bank's motto is "we can clean your rubles"!
PROSECUTE RUSSIAGATE!
1
No, it wouldn't give us President Chickenhawk. It would however give us Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Ceausescu,Ho Chi Minh, Honecker, the Kims, etc, etc, etc, etc. Doesn't matter how bad the Angry Orange is, he's nowhere near the body count of socialism over the last century. We shouldn't let bad leadership push us into making even worse reactionary decisions.
@TLibby
Authoritarian communism and social democracy are vastly different. Give Trump time and I'm sure the body count will rise, as it always does under authoritarians.
1
@wcdevins
The vast majority of the time socialism and "social democracy"(Talk about redefining the definitions until you get the result you want. Orwell would not be surprised.)have slid inexorably into authoritarianism, most times flavored Communist, sometimes not. To pretend otherwise is hopeful willful ignorance of history. I'm no fan of Trump's, but his body count hasn't gotten anywhere near Obama's after the same amount of time in ofice yet I doubt you'd consider him an authoritarian.
Every form of government is capable of abuse by its power holders. Here is a picture of capitalism in real time:
Unaccompanied vulnerable minors are 'captured' at the southern border and delivered to capitalist Nasdaq corporation facilities within in our country at unknown locations. That corporation is paid by government contracts/your tax dollars for 'housing' the kids -while the kids' names, the number of kids held, and the location of these 'holding facilities' (aka prisoners in prisons, aka cages) are hidden. Are tax dollars used to subsidize the construction of these facilities? ...... continued
3
I’m all for insulting Trump and his shady business dealings. But the logical thread of this article brings NYT one step closer to cheese and wine tasting small talk.
Trump shady -> Deutsche bank shady -> Deutsche bank big and capitalist -> socialism good
Real socialists would not dirty their hands with D.J.T.
Socialists care about their fellow man. Not so with D.J.T.
Strange how a country that developed the first ICBM and Jet engines could be so easily duped by the likes of D.J.T.
Where was this investigative journalism when it was really needed, before this con man in chief gained access to the oval office?
1
Gail identifies the GOP/Trump ploy with coining “Socialism” as a bad idea of the Democrats. But the GOP/Trump alternative isn’t about “Capitalism”.
Trump isn’t giving Capitalism a bad image — nope. It’s billionaires.
1
Deutsche Bank is a horrible stock investment, and perhaps the worst run big bank on the planet, which says a lot. Just 12 years ago Deutsche Bank stock was trading at over $150/share and just now their stock is at $8.49/share.
Any bank whose business model is to loan money to Trump is a bank that will eventually go out of business, and their stock will not be in my portfolio.
1
Democrats:
simplify, make it all about a referendum on Trump's corruption.
everything else is a distraction and helps Trump.
that is why Trump talks about socialism, Omar, etc.
to distract from his corruption.
2
When the mainstream America uses socialist failed economies, they only look at the wrong ones - totalitarian or autocratic countries (like former East Germany, Soviet Russia, Venezuela, etc.), instead of the successful cases, um, social democracies of New Zealand, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, etc. Talk about self-serving, misleading propaganda. US is rather an upward socialist country. Welfare and subsidies for the wealthy. We need socialism to equalize and level the field. Inequality is a major root of social instability, disruption and chasm in the social fabric, and becomes a fertile ground for self-destruction. Good grief! Wake up, bankers! Do some soul searching. America's relatively rule-abiding, peaceful, and civil communities have contributed to your profit, lasting prosperity, and competitiveness, if not attractiveness. We have provided you physical security and safe haven. Go easy on the cutthroat, profit- and growth-driven policies and practices. Act like people's and true citizens' bank, not just big money people. No lending to wasteful, luxury-condo building moguls, most of whose occupants seem fishy at best, if not racketeers and traffickers. Note national security and corruption. Better yet, cherish, invest in, and give to your local and global communities by helping small businesses and risky startups that have a potential for building and sustaining this world you have benefited from for quite some time. Time for mandatory transparency and oversight!
1
“the same tired economic theories that have impoverished nations … over the past century. That system is socialism.” Yes, impoverished nations like Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, France, Holland, etc. Not socialist countries per se but governments that instituted policies (like universal health care) for the common good.
1
Republicans love socialism, if it benefits the "right" people. Our (former) Republican governor and his obsequious pals in the legislature paid a private corporation $4 billion to build a factory in Paul Ryan's (former) House district. The guv proceeded to use this deal as evidence of his business acumen when running for re-election. Farmers--who coincidentally tend to vote Republican--receive untold billions every year to plant certain crops, not plant other crops, if commodity prices fall, if China retaliates against Donald Trump's tariffs, etc. etc. And the biggest giveaways of all go to all manner of private for-profit enterprises who get to NOT pay society to compensate for the trillions in damage they do by spewing toxic chemicals, carbon dioxide, and other pollutants into our air and water. But spend a few thousand dollars a year to provide a poor family with health insurance? "Socialism!" The "Road to Serfdom." A "culture of dependency." The horror! Give me a break.
1
Socialism and Capitalism are co-dependent. Capitalism without a socialist system of income distribution and well being will result in a greedy selfish society without joy. Socialism without the innovation, energy and productivity of Capitalism will result in stagnation.
It is foolish to take sides with either C or S and expect to create a good society. We are close to the optimum here in the USA, thanks to the fertile corporate breeding ground on the one hand, and programs like Medicare and Social Security on the other.
2
Whadda ya know?! Banks are now just like the rest of America. Seduced by celebrity status. Success is not about what you actually do but about what you can convince others you are. The selling of image has become a profession in and of itself in 21st century America. But then again it's just a re-branding of the same old game. In days of old known as con artist.
What? No connection drawn, or least implied, between Deutsche Bank's Russian money laundering and Trump's nefarious reputation? I think you missed an important opportunity here, Gail.
Another gratuitous slam at the Trumpster. Hey, try reading some real news. Economy great. Unemployment minescule. Wages rising. ISIS essentially eradicated. Border more secure despite the weaknesses in the fence and our ridiculous immigration system. Also, trying to bring home more troops and extricate us from wars. China flinching in trade battle. Only failure so far is North Korea. And, he gave it a good try. Not a Trump supporter but I can read.
Try it.
Please define what you mean by socialism. It and other words are tossed around so indiscriminately as to lose meaning.
Socialism did give us Trump:
1. Socialism created the Soviet Union with Vladimir Putin in the KGB.
2. The Soviet Union created nationalist Russia with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.
3. Vladimir Putin created the Trump presidency.
2
When I think of socialism, and it could be just me, the following National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics come to mind. If you put Democratic or People's in a country's name, the German Democratic Republic and the People's Republic of China come to mind. Sorry, but while both are far from perfect, capitalism is the superior economic system and the same for our form of government. As for European socialism, you cannot compare nearly homogeneous and small countries such as Sweden or Denmark to the U.S. If we significantly reduce our military presence, these countries would have to pick up the slack and guess what, there goes their social programs.
@Gary
You forgot Canada. There's quite a few of us up here. And we are not homogeneous. We do, however, have programs such as universal health care. Remind me how much of a military presence you have here?
A column using the hook of "Socialism", whatever that means-- then veering away to what? More Trump junk piled higher & deeper.
We need valuable NYT op ed space to define socialism. Don’t leave it up to the conservatives to define it. Explain how what we call 'socialism' has worked in the world. Where, when, how, under what rules? That is, socialism for the citizen majority, not for the financial elites---thus democracy.
What about regulated capitalism? Regulated by elected govts. Not corporations and big money doing the regulating of our government--that we stand in line to elect. Where is Representation for Our Taxation?
Add that to our continual media focus on Trump Junk---even if it’s critical.
Health care? Could NYT columnists actually grapple with how dozens of other capitalist democracies on our planet have long been funding health care for all, regardless of income, job status or health condition? And with support of all citizens! Don't keep that dark.
Why is there a media black- out on the crucial data examples, that could clarify this issue for manipulated US voters?
The American 'free press', pushes endless stories that are a Political Reality TV series---on Tsar Trump and his unethical, exploitive finances. We know already.
Does the NYT call this informing voters on issues affecting our lives? The reason for a 'free press'?
We need better, now of all times.
Another informative edutainment piece my Ms. Collins.
I hope Dems start a conversation regarding the huge difference between Socialism and democratic socialism.
1
this is the first place i heard it .i was thinking how Donald is going to win next election he can't possibly do it on his job merits
last time make america great again ,i.e kick immigrants to curb, be nasty ,actually own the dictatorship traits of america and strip world of gold, bring back ineffective jobs so my base is happy
this time socialism vs capitalism, moral crusader to save capitalism and people who are going to vote in red states are americans who believed in propaganda against russia and died in Vietnam. man he is clever ,that would be reason to promote AOC make her poster child of democratic party .
not sure whether this is right time to make bernie as democratic nominee
Sure we have our military, the largest and most funded socialist program in the world, as yes we have public roads, highways, bridges, police, fire departments, jails, FBI, CIA, FDA, FEMA, OSHA, public schools, libraries, social security, parks, public transportation, medicare and medicaid, but that's not socialism. Socialism is when EVERYONE gets affordable health care, and if you want to know what that leads to, just look at Venezuela.
1
Thanks again, Gail. Your column makes more sense than the actual story.
What will you do when The Donald departs?
Trump embodies the distilled essence of the donor class that controls the GOP:
Take it now, take as much as you can for yourself, don't worry, everything will work out in the future (somehow), and if some people get stepped on in the process, that only goes to show you were smarter than they, and so you deserved what you took, and any program to provide healthcare and opportunities for others, well, that's just socialist-speak to undue the marvelous things you accomplished for yourself (or at least with the help of your dad).
It seems that Americans still don't understand what the difference between socialism and social democratic is. History lessons lessons could be helpful. As a rule, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk about it at all.
@Marianne Pomeroy
Problem is, public education has been gutted in the USA. You have millions upon millions of Americans who have no idea how to think critically.
1
Well the GOP can take some solace from Deutsche Bank: Trump tricked them too! Luck for the GOP, they got their money: Deutsche Bank lost their investors’ money (not their own, BTW).
1
It has gotten to the point that Individual #1's story has gotten so repetitive with lying, cheating and scandals that you want to put your fingers in your ears. We need to stay focused on one thing, the elections and rid ourselves of this pariah and his Republican enablers. Time for the national reset button.
1
You’re right Gail, Socialism wouldn’t give you Trump. Not in 2020, but in the long run it will give you Stalin, Brezhnev, Pol Pot, Ceausescu and Maduro.
The problem is that like so many Americans, you talk freely about something you don’t have any experience with: socialism, overbearing government with extended powers, dictatorship, hardship under a non-capitalist system.
@Gimme A. Break
The problem is that like so many Americans, you talk freely about something you don’t have any experience with: socialism, overbearing government with extended powers, dictatorship, hardship under a non-capitalist system.
1
As a student of business and law for a lifetime two things struck me as I read your great article.
1. Where were the shareholders of Deutsche Bank for all those years Trump was scamming them?
2. How many people has Trump paid off in NYC, NY State and other places in order to run his alleged crime syndicate. I’m hopeful the SDNY, NY AG, AND NYC DA will get the answer to that question.
Funny, sure, but also totally surreal. And now the Grand Guignol of Scam is sitting in the White House in all his demented glory. At this point I'm hardly concerned that some "socialism," say in the form of universal healthcare, might be working itself into the national equation. We have a lot more to worry about.
This is what civilization is coming to? Celebrity means never having to say you're sorry, or to shoulder the responsibilities for your actions. And the people eat it up and elect a celebrity to the presidency; a fake celebrity to boot, one manufactured by Howard Stern and the producers of the Apprentice.
My oldest memory of t rump was his bragging that he was going to show Merv Griffith how real estate was done by the new breed. He insulted and demeaned Griffith, who was a very successful developer, until in the end t rump was made the fool and Griffith won the bid.
As others have pointed out in these comments the U.S. already has quite a bit of socialism. We see regulations cut so coal mines can dump their waste in our rivers, which We the People then clean up shouldering the costs of their products with none of the profits. Socialism!
We send our Navy, paid by our tax dollars, to patrol the vast oceans keeping the sea lanes safe so the koch bother's fleet of oil tankers can move their goods safely to markets. Again We the People shoulder the costs while the kochs gather the profits.
t rump and his fascist party enacted only one serious piece of legislation in their two years of unfettered power; a tax give away to the richest of the rich while they plot to cut Social Security and Medicare for the rest of US.
When the Russian money laundering through Deutche is fully revealed we will understand why they did business with the so called real estate tycoon.
Gail is mistaken in thinking Trump gives capitalism a bad name. Trump and his supporters together are giving billionaires a bad name. The Mercers, the Kochs, the DeVos, the Spencers, the Uihleins, the Adelsons, the Wilks... there are quite a few balmy billionaires running the GOP and State Legislatures.
It’s not Capitalism or Conservatism or any “ism”. It’s Oligarchy, and unfortunately by a bonkers bunch.
2
Spot on, Gail. Keep writing your witty to the point articles. Loved it!
According to Gail: “nobody makes capitalism look worse than Donald Trump”.
But Donald is not an example of “capitalism”. Rather, what Donald is making look worse is billionaires, providing the example of billionaire as bilk artist.
Donald also is making the GOP look bad, because it supports to the hilt this purveyor of the putrid.
1
When I read the Trump response to your picture, all I could think about was James Bond. 60's era Sean Connery, "You Only Live Twice".
Throwaway line, "she has the face of a pig..."
Beautiful Woman of course.
Socialism and Capitalism are not mutually exclusive. In fact, most European countries have democratic socialism, and from 1789, the US had a general welfare clause in our Constitution. To make the argument Republicans assert a false dichotomy.
Historically. big capital opposed child welfare laws, free public education, the eight hour work day, equal rights for women, a progressive income tax, the interstate highway system, the GI Bill, Social Security, Medicare, etc. Little guys like me are Petite Beaujolais who want universal healthcare, for example, because it would reduce expose to lawsuits, reduce the cost of workers' compensation because future medicals would be covered, and reduce the cost of other insurance and increase profits.
A better discussion is around Fascism. Our founding fathers rejected feudalism, authoritarian control by despots. Every Republican who supports the fake crisis, invoking a "unitary executive," another name for dictator, supports Fascism.
2
Let's drill a little further down into "capitalism" vs "Socialism". Capitalism is more efficient than statism, because capitalism is more efficient in allocating scarce resources than insensitive bureaucracies. (By "statism" I mean any system in which the state owns the means of production and controls the economy.) Statist societies always seem to founder. But free market capitalism has its dark side too. It concentrates wealth in the hands of a few "winners" at the expense of everyone else. So neither capitalism or statism in their purest forms appear desirable for society as a whole.
If we replace insensitive statism with democratically-chosen social goals for society, while retaining private ownership of the means of production, and if we limit extreme wealth accumulation, we will have a better world for most members of a society. This is "social democracy" and it works in some other countries. We are the outlier among western societies in our free market capitalist ideology, and it is hurting us.
2
The Republicans idea of socialism is anything that provides a collective benefit for the people. Stuff like Social Security and Medicare and, especially, Obamacare.
I would suggest that the conservatives live up to their mantra of “the country should be run like a business”. If it were we would recognize that we have 350 million citizens/employees who will always be on the payroll one way or another and will either be contributing to or draining the business. If we did run the country as a business we would make sure that every employee/citizen was maximally educated/trained, had affordable healthcare, available resources to allow them to work (eg free early childhood daycare) and economic security. You cannot argue that our current system does any of this and socialist policies are needed to get us there.
I first heard about Trump's big defaults fifteen years ago. A few years later I found the he not only defaulted big banks but also small "buyers" who made initial payments for a property they would never receive because the project defaulted before starting any construction and the initial payments had vanished. How could such a person become first a candidate an then president? Magics of democracy. What is the relationship to socialism? In a socialist country with democratic elections it also may happen. Just saying "socialism" to scare some people is like crying Wolf. It may work with people who do not understand what socialism really is.
1
Swindling contractors by not paying the bills, students with a worthless university, swindling investors by bankrupting their investments is not capitalism, it is racketeering, and dishonest Donald as been sued for doing so. It is his way of doing business, that is what he calls it anyway.
To be one of his followers, you have to be just as dishonest as he is, willing to cheat, lie, and produce false income statements. Most of us would be in court on RICO charges, he has been charged but so far has managed to evade the consequences.
If you are honest, keep your word, pay your bills, you should be outraged that someone like him gets special treatment. That is what the GOP has given you, and they are telling you to grateful for it. They say take it and like it, and while you are at it give us more of your money to insult you with sucker.
5
• Free-market capitalism: This type of capitalism leaves all aspects of a society to be governed by the market, with little or no intervention from the government. Here, the role of the government is limited to protect the lives and property of the citizens.
• Corporate capitalism: In this type of economy, large, bureaucratic corporations dominate the economy. This allows for long-term planning and efficiency, but less innovation. Large corporations may also have an equally large influence over the government, leading to legislation designed to protect the interests of those companies.
• Social-democratic or social market economy: This economic system is an attempt to balance the benefits of a free-market system with a strong social support structure. While most industries are privately owned, the government is more heavily involved in making sure that competition is fair, unemployment is low, and social welfare is provided for those who need it.
Then there is the "scary" socialism that is used to make people afraid. Its the idea that the Government controls all business and wages and profits and production and even your lives! You must ask to have children , get medical care, buy a house. Of course this is nonsense but it is a way for one group to scare people from supporting a system they do not want. Whenever anything that deviates from the idea of "free market capitalism is raised then the scare tactics are used to try and stop any discussion.
8
@RichardHead - Where has this mythical "free-market capitalism" been tried?
I used to know a young doctor who lived in Sands Point. Nice guy, lovely family, beautiful home on the Long Island Sound. We talked about investments -- mine conservative and debt-free, his risky and leveraged. He insisted that one's worth isn't based on one's holdings but on one's credit rating. Of course he was a fraud whose lies cost him his medical license, his family, his home, and his good name. If only he'd been a bigger fish, he might still have all of these things.
2
I want all Americans to have free health care and free community college education or vocational training. I want all Americans to have a living wage job or a basic minimum income. I want all Americans to have paid family leave and guaranteed paid one month vacation. I want modern public transit and high speed rail. I want clean air and clean water. I want a 70% tax on income over ten million.
These benefits—provided by every other first world nation on earth—can be paid for by reducing our bloated military industrial complex.
If this makes me “far left” or socialist, then call me a socialist.
22
From the “World Happiness Report”
Once again, Finland tops the list. The report ranks 156 countries by how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be, according to their own evaluations of their lives.
Finland is followed, in order, by Denmark, Norway, Iceland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, New Zealand, Canada and Austria. These are countries that “consistently” rank in the top 10, the report notes.
Among the reasons posited for why Nordic countries often predominate at the list include good work-life balance, generous parental leave, and lots of time spent in nature.
The U.S. doesn’t make that top 10 — not even close. It once again fell in the rankings, dropping one spot to 19th.
Socialism does not scare me. Not one bit. I could use a little happiness. Lots of Americans could.
23
The United States is already a socialist state, one in which the higher end of the earnings and wealth spectrum has managed to abdicate their responsibility to pay the taxes they should.
9
I don't know why the Democrats can't frame the debate better. Many of the commenters here make excellent points that should be formulated into catchy phrases repeated ad nauseam as the Republicans do. It seems to be the only way to help people understand ideas. Start with calling themselves FDR Democrats. FDR is recognized as one of our greatest presidents. Use that to build on his legacy. It shouldn't be that hard.
10
Is there any intellectual honesty left in politics? Even the self proclaimed socialists aren't advocating socialism.
There is no better system than capitalism. But there sure are better ways to practice capitalism than the hare brained variety advocated by Trump and Right.
For example, several of my favorite places to eat and shop are employee owned. Everyone working there has a stake in the business and in seeing it thrive and prosper. The profits aren't continuously being siphoned off to pay economic parasites - investors like me, or an overpaid executive class - but rather are shared by those who work for them. Think of it as collective capitalism, and boy does it work.
The best form of capitalism is one that spreads the rewards the widest, which is what we are not doing, and which is why our self centered ways will eventually bring about yet another economic implosion that will imperil our republic and our freedoms.
11
How is it Trump gets to put his name on a hotel and condo tower (in Chicago) that, because he defaulted on the $640 million loan, he doesn't own (the bank does)?
7
@JD Who are the board members of a bank? That would answer your question.
It’s Democrats who have little understanding of economics. I just priced a round trip flight between Chicago and Las Vegas for $146 on Spirit Airlines. The laptop I’m using cost $300 brand new. My HDTV cost $150 brand new. A new pair of Levi's jeans is $50. Same for a new pair of shoes. Bernie Sanders thinks we should have a $15 an hour minimum wage. He doesn’t understand the economy. He thinks $15 an hour is reasonable, because housing, healthcare, and education are so expensive. But, the reason those things are so expensive is because of heavy government involvement in those areas of the economy. The Democrats are causing certain products and services to cost more than they should and their solution is socialism.
2
So working people should remain poor?
@Mark
So, did you buy all that stuff on $15 per hour? Other than the flight to Chicago, was it made in the USA?
@Mark Your cheap laptop, TV and jeans were made in China and India. That’s why they’re cheap. But I don’t think Americans want the standard of living of workers in those countries. How is it that socialized medicine in other countries so much less expensive than capitalized medicine in the US? Really bad example.
It fascinates me that no one seems to see a connection between the retirement of Justice Kennedy (whose son worked at Deutsche Bank) and the imperative for Trump to get his Supreme Court appointment.
22
@catinna We do see the connections. I think Joe Biden's son sits as a board member for a certain energy company in Ukraine.
No, but it might give us Mao or Stalin.
Interesting that the Green New Deal is compared to FDR’s New Deal when it’s scope, timing, and cost are far more similar to Stalin’s 5 Year Plans and Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Massive societal and economic change over a short period of time requires a huge and oppressive bureaucracy and leaves a lot of collateral damage (i.e., lots of dead people). No thanks!
The Founders were wise in their judgement that a decentralized system government with checks and balances would be slow and inefficient, but ultimately better in the long run. It gives me comfort that there will be much debate and consideration before we outlaw cheeseburgers.
2
We need the New Green Deal. There is plenty of room for entrepreneurship in a green economy.
2
@JG Your leap from democratic socialism to totalitarian communism represents the same idiotic paranoia that gave us Donald Trump.
Socialism will give us a Socialist Trump. we need to get a Congress which defends itself and our Constitution, which checks Executive power, and which limits government. We are on a dangerous path of unlimited Executive power and a spoils system of winner take all.
14
IMHO there is a big part missing from this financial venture...Maybe the bank was holding some sort of securities out of the US, like in Cyprus or other friendly territories for the money laudering people! We will see...
7
Yes! I doubt DB was naively loosing millions. The missing piece of the puzzle is, how was DB ( or perhaps certain key DB employees) compensated for these bad loans.
3
@yves rochette Maybe it is DB who is currently fighting a subpoena from the SC up to USASC???
Donald Trump couldn't define " socialism " and we all know it. When is this "alien" presidency going to end ? The slime and banality just oozes from Trump, his vacuous daughter and vapid son-in-law. Every day he occupies the Oval Office diminishes the American presidency, and highlights the cynical lack of integrity, which permeates his spineless enablers in the Republican Party. The Deutsche bank fiasco has even tainted the family of former Supreme Court " decider "Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose son is a high ranking bank official. The Trump presidency will become a synonym for incompetence, corruption, and insidious nepotism.
26
How can anyone be civil about the man who is going to such legths to destroy the nation we love?
He lies and he steals and then complains about real American heroes...
tRump needs to go and now!
16
The shriveled human soul of Trump cannot make his name tall enough on buildings as he tries to feed his ego. And he cannot cease beating the dead, literally, as 2/3 of a year after McCain’s death, Trump keeps trying to do battle with that giant who served in the Senate.
14
Looking @ my crystal ball, reading headlines from NYT. The year 2090.
A charlatan grifter from Queens with thuggish personality and boorish disposition-somehow-convinced 60 million voters he will be their savior and was elected president.
Kudos to him.
The real shame is the 60 million gullible voters who willfully blinded themselves as not to see this fraudster lifelong charade of deceit, bankruptcies, and the criminal enterprise he was running for nearly 50 years. After four tumultuous years in the WH he was soundly defeated in his reelection bid. A year later he was convicted on multiple felony charges and died in Terre Haute, IN federal prison.
20
History gives us many examples of men who manage to deceive a large number of persons against all odds. That their promises turn out to be false somehow doesn't seem to reduce their capacity to convince people time and again. Was it P. T. Barnum who said that there is a sucker born ever day? Or is it one of these wonderful anonymous sayings that are proof of the authenticity of the generalization? In any event, whether it is Madoff or Trump the snake oil salesman is an ever present figure, just as the fools who believe in them ar always at hand to help him.
16
@Frank Casa
Two of my mothers favorite quotes was don’t believe everything a loud mouth spews and nothing is for free.
If a democrat did any one of the terrible and immoral things trump has done, and there are too many to list here, the republicans would have had his/ her head on a spike.
LOCK HIM UP!
15
One of the earliest used social program is the church run Ice Cream Social.
1
One might ask why the NYT's David Enrich only published his piece 2 days ago and not two years ago.
The Democratic Party and its supporters, including the NYT did not take Mr. Trump seriously, otherwise you might have figured out then that his wealth, based on his father's small but real empire, was built on rather shaky foundations throughout the years
5
Golly gee, I pay all my loans.
I wonder if Deutsche Bank would loan me 125 million dollars?
9
@esp If they came out of the Great Recession because, although they are part of the European Union (euro) also have their own currency (deutsche mark), possibly; similar with Britain utilizing their currency (pound).
DONALD TRUMP GAVE US COMMUNISM!! Not socialism. It was Communism! Yes, that's right! Communism. The philosophy whose slogan is, "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs." And who enabled the greatest Communist ever to govern the US? Deutsche Bank of course. Donald borrowed many millions from them. And paid them back according to his abilities. Which wasn't a whole lot. Which brings to mind the refrains from Orwell's Animal Farm: All animals are created equal. But some are more equal than others. I guess Trump was more equal than others? OINK!!! He received from Deutsche Bank according to his need and paid them back according to his abilities. Making him one of the most accomplished swindlers in history! Just look at how he's trying to swindle the US into paying for a wall that Congress refuses to fund. Oh yeah, Congress holds the purse strings. Leaving Trump to misappropriate, apparently, funds intended for the military. I wonder what the Joint Chiefs are going to say about Trump's revisionist Communist practices. If I were Trump, I wouldn't rattle the cage of the military. They outgun the Executive! (DISCLAIMER The comparison of the arms available to the military and to Trump is intended exclusively as a satirical remark. No harm is intended toward the person of the president.) But still, Trump had best reconsider riling up the military! (No harm, no foul.)
2
I have been teased long enough. My anticipatory glands have been tweaked so many times that they have run out of hormones to secrete. Produce "the face of a pig" picture for all to see. With as much notoriety as it has received, that annotated image and a Lincoln aught to get you a cup of coffee.
You know the President's has done extensive research on his latest entry in his boogyman pantheon of fears, Socialism. He has read at length on all the permutations of Socialism. He probably approached his usage of it in the same scholarly fashion that has been the benchmark of his presidency, hamberder in hand while contemplating the naval he can no longer see. He's a pretty busy guy so he's gonna let Mikie do it now.
4
It makes one wonder where the Deutsche funds ultimately derived from doesn't it? A money laundering portal for Russian Oligarch's/Mafia perhaps? Lord knows during the period mentioned, straight up thru today, they've been very busy looking their own country of everything not bolted to the floor...
John~
American Net'Zen
5
To figure out this case I think we need to examine Michael Lewis's essay on the Germans in his collection Boomerang.
That was a brilliant op-ed.
1
I'd be more comfortable in a "socialist" state than a Communist/dictatorship that Trump worships.
9
How much has the bank lost on Trump?
3
Hello? Ms. Collins has entirely missed the significance of Deutsche Bank's relationship with Trump.
Deutsche Bank has been seriously in bed with Putin and his mobsters for a long time: decades.
Why on earth do you think Trump likes owning foreign real estate like golf courses? He is laundering illegal Russian Magnitsky Act blood money.
This is not rocket science. Get with it.
14
When does Trump have time to talk about socialism when he's so busy whining about John McCain?
8
@Linda Trump has time to tweet dozens of times a day. It's the old "throw enough dirt and some of it will stick" ploy.
Come on ! Wake up fellow Americans. 800 million citizens of the world don't have drinkable water at their disposition.
4
I haven't read this book yet but read a number of synopses (none as entertaining as Gail's). I kept waiting for a mention of the Russian money laundering Deutsche Bank got zinged for and it never appeared. Guess I just need to wait for the Mueller report.
4
The laundered money will be coming home to roost.
1
"If you owe the bank $100 dollars, that's your problem; if you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty
This has been widely paraphrased as "If you owe the bank $100, the bank owns you; if you owe the bank $1,000,000, you own the bank."
Trump learned this at his daddy's knee. And the rest of us are paying for it, then and now, with this and all the other scams His Royal Stupidity foists on us. Everything he says is a lie.
Unfortunately, most Americans are breathtakingly ignorant about anything having to do with money or finance. That's why so few understand what social democracy means, how Scandinavia perfected it to reduce inequality, and why their people are the happiest and longest-lived in the world.
Americans are too ill-informed to vote in their best interests. Instead, seduced by absurd fairy tales about pulling bootstraps and endless opportunity for all, they demonize poverty (even when they're the ones who are poor) and vote for con artists who promise them the moon with one hand while picking their pockets with the other.
Most people who voted for Trump, to quote Fran Lebowitz, did so because he's the stereotype of what poor people think a rich person is like. They fell for the Wizard of Oz, who is nothing but an impotent, greedy old man hiding behind an angry mask.
What a tragedy for the US, and the world. Four years of precious opportunities lost while we endure the incoherent ranting and raving of a narcissistic lunatic.
13
So Trump is "a guy whose major financial talent seems to be defaulting." It works! After all, there's one born every minute, and a good grifter learns young: Never giver a sucker an even break.
2
So - Deutsche Bank was being fined to the tune of $14 Billion prior to Trump being elected POTUS.
Trump owed Deutsche Bank a couple billion dollars.
So - whatever happened to Deutsche Bank's fine? And whatever happened to the $2 billion or so that Trump owes Deutsche Bank?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/deutsche-bank-is-asked-to-pay-14-billion-to-resolve-u-s-probe-into-mortgage-securities-1473975404
1
Poor ignorant Americans. This whole dialog about socialism is happening in an absolute vacuum of understanding what modern socialism is. I spent last summer in Norway, a socialist country, and I was absolutely astounded at how well it was working. Capitalism's dirty little secret is that in any reasonable modern economy a worker's production exceeds the wages and benefits they receive. This excess is called profit. With capitalism the workers and the society they represent have no right to any of these profits unless they're wealthy enough to become investors. Socialism works for the common good of the workers and the society. Spend a week in Oslo and you will see the difference. Workers are revered and there are heroic statues of them everywhere. The role of society in the health and wealth of the nation is celebrated. Trump said he wanted more immigrants from Norway but I don't think many of them want to leave.
6
I will be glad if they can make the election about Socialism. Because they are going to lose.
We need more socialism. This is an excellent chance to get it. So yes, let's make this about Socialism.
Thanks, Republicans, that word will never again be what it was, when it was socialism = dirty commies. Now it will be socialism =/= not like Trump.
Socialism will give us four more years of Trump if the left decides to stand a socialist for president. Pompous fools, like Trump, are to be found anywhere, under any banner or ideology. Socialism will give a future tyrannical president more control over the people than Trump could ever exercise.
I had an uncle once, a New York salesman who started with a pushcart in the Bowery. He used to say, if you owe $5,000 you are a bum, if you owe $50,000 you are a big businessman.
Socialism by definition is Government Ownership of the means of production, capitalism is private ownership of the means of production and capital, Capital meaning the plants, land equipment, not just the bank account. It does not prevent government ownership of some businesses, or government regulation for the benefit of the public like roads, or even shipyards to make military boats for instance. It is the baize faire ideologues that call anything other than police, military, and courts Socialistic.
The GOP threat of Socialism is just plain fear mongering, something they have become good at, and Dishonest Donald has picked up, despite being totally devoid of any knowledge of economics. But this plays well with those whose economic knowledge consists of opinions, those who think they know more than they do, examples of the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
As we see the Swindler Donald as I call him has found his marks over the years, just like the pyramid scammers have, proof the gullible are among us including the rapacious employees of Deutschebank.
Ss Clarence Darrow said," have never advocated killing anyone, but I sure enjoy reading their obituaries." As the GOP fades into the annals of infamy, we will have to repair the damage for years.
2
What we have is Trumpalism- it is capitalism gone terribly wrong.It means lying, cheating and borrowing gobs of money and then not repaying it.If the banks have the temerity to,ask to b repaid you sue them.Trumpalism means looking for money in every deal.If you want to look generous just establish a foundation funded by other people.Trumpalism bears no resemblance to Capitalism.
3
Republicans opposed attempts to assure the public good from the time of Karl Rove, the “genius” behind Reagan. Reagan, The Actor, with wife, limos, and glittering soirées, provided respite from the reality of wars. We had been fighting the War in Vietnam, the war against students and “hippies” who were against the war in Vietnam, and the national exhaustion of realizing that Nixon and Agnew lied when they said they believed in “Law and Order.”
Enter Reagan, Actor. America, relieved by his relaxed confidence, little realized that he turned control over to 3 men with private agendas. Congratulations Karl Rove.
Then Bush, Bush, and now a manure pile of lies from Trump. Now a so-called president doesn’t even have to consider reality, learnedness, respect for others, general interest of the population, or rights of women or minorities when he speaks or twits daily. He does not need to read The U.S. Constitution, nor pay attention when paid government employees point out relevant laws or data. Forget “Science.” These cyclones and hurricanes are “normal,” Trust Us.
To continue with Republican insanity, we choose not educating people to the level of jobs with sustainable incomes, not keep people healthy, and give most of what is available to the 1%
Rather than .... Educate our population, Help us stay healthy and welcome us as taxpayers to contribute to our renewable system. Skip the tariffs, keep the population healthy and educated. Compete.
6
put the late Phineas T. Barnum and the late John Gotti into a blender. Behold, the 45th president of The United States
3
There is an official financial term for this. It’s called Dumb Money.
93
Trump worth how much? He is proving himself to be of negative value as the premier representative of the United States.
3
Gail... You're the best !
And lest we forget, what happens when a bank gets stiffed on a bad loan? Do they just write it off? Wave a magic wand to make it disappear?
Nope.
The money lost is applied against profits so every service by the bank from that point forward becomes a little more expensive. In other words, the rest of us pay for it.
Kinda' like when someone cheats on their taxes. The honest taxpayers pick up the slack. And does Donnie thank them for it?
Nooooooooooo..... !
He tells the rubes that makes him smart. Very smart.
4
I enjoyed reading the comments which accompanied this article about President Donald Trump and Socialism. It would appear that despite the New York Times being the last word on bourgeois imperialist ideology or maybe for this reason, many genuine socialists read the NYT.
If one were to to actually go to Cuba and see how their banking and financial system works, one would not see the lax oversight and shonky borrowing that takes place in the USA - not forgetting the impact of the Platt Amendment of the US Constitution and the Helms Burton Act on their economy (aka the US Blockade of Cuba)
I usually don't post until I'm certain, but is it true that former Justice Anthony Kennedy's son is the head of the section of Deutsche Bank that gave trump all of his loans?
2
Yes, America will never be a traditional "socialist" country. But we are and always will be a country where our own brand of oligarchs control the 99%.
1
I think the American public has a poor understanding of the terms "capitalism" and "the market", neither of which requires the other, nor are do those terms mean the same thing.
In simplest terms, capitalism is largely based on private ownership, whereas socialism is based on government ownership. History indicates either of these systems by itself does not work well--extreme capitalism or extreme socialism. Many of the advanced democratic countries that rate higher on quality of life and a fairer distribution of wealth work for a balance between capitalism and socialism which they call "democratic socialism." Of course, the Republicans demonizing socialism leave out the "democratic" label, hoping a lot of Cold War anti-Soviet aging Americans will equate "socialism" with Soviet-style Stalin communism.
And since there do not appear many inquiring minds who want to know in the Republican and Trump corral these days, the GOP politicians can feel confident their supporters won't bother to check or criticize what they are told.
But some of the most popular public programs in the U.S. are basically socialist, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, national parks, the GI Bill, the military, fire and police, public transportation and education, public roads and bridges, and all those regulatory agencies the right-wing so detests that are supposed to oversee the safety of things like public water, clean air, etc.
But if the GOP wants to reject all socialism, then perhaps they need to do away with government subsidies for agriculture, the oil industry, and the transfer of taxpayer dollars to private corporations.
562
@Jack Walsh
Okay, I found "government-owned," "community-owned," "state-owned/controlled" in definitions of socialism, and sometimes "publicly-owned." I agree with you, "community-owned" better captures the spirit of democratic-socialism and conveys "communitarianism."
I noticed you are from Massachusetts, where one of our daughters and her family lives. We love their New England community and public spiritedness, with plenty of respect for individuality, hard work, and being a good neighbor by taking care of each other.
We lived in Syracuse for 45 years, and sometimes walked with a 100% Republican capitalist neighbor down the street, who used to refer to his sister as someone who lived in The People's Republic of Massachusetts, thinking he was being so witty.
37
@PB How about saying "community ownership" rather than "government ownership"? Makes more sense to me. In Massachusetts, where there are a number of town-owned electric utilities, the service is better and the bills lower than towns served by the the commercial utilities. That is real, genuine socialism. But to call that "government owned" is just a bit off -- the power companies are owned by, well, the community.
223
@PB
Actually, it's called social democracy.
44
You mean to say that even sophisticated folks in the upper realms of global finance can be suckers, too? Oh gosh oh gee. During the Bernie Madoff unraveling, investors were signing up for similar Ponzi-style financial schemes. Elizabeth Holmes convinced lots of smart people to invest in Theranos, with its non-existent technology and magical thinking. I can easily picture these old guys (men of a certain age) falling over themselves to impress the beautiful, and evidently charming, Ms. Holmes.
What Tevye said seems more sadly true than ever: "When you're rich, they think you really know."
2
Socialism. Reparations. Electoral College Reform. Pack the Supreme Court. Green New Deal.
The Democrats are geniuses.
Why didn’t Robbie Mook come up with these issues in 2016?
How else can we appeal to white working class voters in the Rust Belt.
Why should we offer to kill Reaganomics and return to the economic stability and prosperity of the original New Deal when we have all these fantastic new issues that will lure middle Americans away from Trump?
The U.S. military and the defense establishment is the second largest socialist economy in the world after the Peoples Republic of China.
1
Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor.
2
What is socialism? When we form countries we create governments which monitor, control aspects of society and helps provide for the public good. This is socialism and without it we would have no roads, educational system, military or systems which give us clean air or water.
The argument between capitalism and socialism are empty as all societies require both to one degree or another. The real argument is about balance between the two. It's like having two hands that work together.
The GOP though an arm of government that claims to support capitalism only would have us cut off the other hand because it interferes with the hand they favor. This would give us the anarchy which Trump craves and would allow him to conduct his illicit dealings without restrictions little understanding that we as a civilization that we need some form of socialism to form a working society at all in order to create a more perfect union.
I
1
Thanks Gail for explaining the NY Times investigatory reporting on Deutsch and Trump. Deutsch Bank's executives behavior was so outrageous and worthy of the criminally insane -- I thought maybe I didn't understand it. But then this is the same Deutsche Bank caught laundering $10 billion of Putin Mafia money, fleeced off the Russian people. The same Deutsche Bank that told Trump he needed to pay $40 million immediately, of the $600 million he owed them. Trump didn't have it. Then, a Russian oligarch, and part owner of the Bank of Cyprus, buys a Trump home in Florida, for $100 million. Now Trump has the money to pay Deutsche Bank. Subsequently, the head of Deutsche Bank gets caught laundering for Putin, so he steps down and goes on to head the Bank of Cyprus--run by Putin's closest friend and Wilbur Ross, now Secretary of Commerce. Another grifter! Sigh.
1
The sub-headline to this column,"What this country needs is a president who knows how to default."
What this country needs is a president. We don't have one.
1
I would like to learn more about Deutsche Bank’s reported connections to Russian oligarchs. It seems to my unsophisticated financial understanding that “bad” bank loans would be a good way to make dirty money disappear and able to emerge elsewhere squeaky clean.
2
There is the Democratic talking point for 2020,
"End Billionaire Socialism"
(Oligarchy is too hard a concept for many Trump voters to understand)
2
The myth of Trump the brilliant businessman should crash down like a house of cards.
Am I the only one ready to break up the post-colonial experiment that fused several proto-countries into one? It took 150+ years but the reality of our situation is we have at least two, and potentially as many as 6, countries co-existing in these squabbling dis-United States. Just like Singapore broke away from Malaysia, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Houston and LA could set up a new Confederacy. Let the pro-Trump middle sort out their own anti-science, anti-women, anti-immigrant medieval structure. We'll take the refugees
2
Trump has defaulted on his sworn oath, hand on Bible, to uphold the Constitution of the United States, but Mitch keeps lending him
truthiness based on zero bonafides.
1
Does anyone really believe that corporations, paying just 6% of US taxes, care one whit about caring for the elderly, poor and infirm? Really, get a Gulfstream and visit Davos.
2
Trump had made US socialism more acceptable. Ask Bernie about it.
Dear Gail,
Forget the trump's label on your picture.
The picture I see is a talented, experienced, dedicated journalist; with a million watt smile.
Bet I'm not the only one who sees this.
Long live the journalists.
1
Speaking of Banks, But as Ms Warren and other Socialist point out President Obama had a chance to reel in the evils of Capitalism during the Bank Crisis of 2008, but alas
NOT
ONE
SINGLE
BANK
EXECUTIVE
WAS
JAILED
I know Ms Collins regards Mr Obama above reproach, but wouldnt that have been a good start?
2
@Sara Ms. Warren is not a socialist. Read her platform.
@Sara - pretty sure that should've been the DOJ's job, and a sitting president ordering the arrests wouldn't have great optics.
Everyone is forgetting the biggest Deutsche Bank scam of all: Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy's son was an executive at the bank who did almost a billion dollars in business with Trump.
And who stepped down from the court a little over a year and a half into the Trump presidency?
1
As Frank Zappa said...Trouble every day.
Didn't we read somewhere that Trump's main lender contact at Deutsche Bank was a son of former Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy?
Gail, what was the purpose of this article. Was it to expose that Donald Trump is a crook or that banks can be snookered or have made bad loans? Given. The Nytimes has given way to a continuous stream of snarky, outraged, and outrageous articles about Trump while promoting progressive policies. Let's be clear, Trump is a bad man, a bad President, a bad husband, a bad role model, a bad businessman, a bad fill in the blank. But to simply be the Fox News of the left where Progressives bad ideas (New Green Deal,70% taxes, payments for non working, Socialism is good, Medicare for all's $32T price tag) are "leadership in the time of Trump" or the charming expressions of social and political visions of gee, just good hearted Progressive politicians that will get it right if we just give them a chance violates the very foundation of journalism and is stain on a paper that was once the True North of American journalism. No more.
1
When you think about the hundreds of thousands of people who are financially ruined every year in the name of medical capitalism (extortion), socialism isn't such a bad option, right? Or is medical debt slavery the Republican preferred option?
3
"When Donald Trump defaulted on a loan for Trump International Hotel in Chicago, he sued Deutsche Bank, which had lent him the money."
For Pete's sake, how did you read past THAT best, most humiliating, caption EVER? Though it's possibly topped by Trump fully debasing himself in Ohio today, attempting, and failing utterly, to humiliate an genuine American hero, John McCain.
Throw Trump out. Vote BLUE no matter who!
3
Department of Irony 2: Trump is the biggest socialist in the upcoming presidential race. By imposing arbitrary tariffs, and then subsidizing farmers, threatening compnies like Harley Davidson, GM, Carrier, Pfizer, etc,, he is imposing government control over business - the precise definition of socialism!
1
Prediction:
Ms Collins mocks Deutsche Bank as incompetent and irrational, but she's wrong. Deutsche Bank will prove to have been completely rational.
Deutsche Bank wasn't in the the money lending business.
It was in the money laundering business.
Trump and his talent for constructing empty buildings, bankruptcy, and elastic morality, had exactly the skill set they needed.
2
"More loans from Deutsche Bank. Some of which he used to pay back … Deutsche Bank."
If some average, "run of the mill crook" in the U.S. tried that kind of thing with a couple of checking accounts (check kiting) and got caught and convicted, they'd probably get a sentence longer than the one Manafort got.
1
The lack of conceptual arguments in the comments is frightening.
Where have Americans been educated ?
For sure they have never read Karl Marx nor Max Weber.
1
Outside say, the Wisconsin farm belt, 'Triump' is now synonymous with crook. Or carnival barker. Deutschebank must have been looking at too many American movies from the 1950s.
One of my favorite parts of the Enrich investigation was that Deutsch Bank employees were told to NEVER mention the trump name in public.
I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a happier looking photo of Jared, as he was in the photo with that aging, female Deutsch banker. Well except maybe when he’s milking money out of MBS or Qatar.
And how sweet SCOTUS Kennedy had a son loaning trump/kushner all that money?
It’s all a little rich for my poor old blood.
2
Republicans gave us Trump because Trump is THE IDEAL REPUBLICAN in every way.
1
Germany really tarnished its “brand” on this one.
That said, it may have some sort of sentimental attachment to Chicago. I will admit this (as a Trump hater). Aside from the detestable 30’ high letter “Trump” sign, the Chicago building is probably the best thing he’s built in 40 years. Great architect...great site...it’s not hard to think why Deutsch Bank would consider it an acceptable risk.
I can see why the Obamas wouldn’t want to move back to Chicago. That building is visible from so many vantage points that you can’t really get away from it. Someday someone will own it and remove Trump’s ghastly name-sign and it will just be one of Adrian Smith’s best commercial buildings.
Aren't public schools, police, fire and defense socialist?
Isn't the Presidency socialist (or did we sell that)?
Check out the yearly reported "Happiest Countries In The World". Every year --- EVERY YEAR --- the results are the same: Socialist Sweden, Socialist Denmark, Socialist Norway are the most contented societies on the planet.
1
What a joke. The whole Libertarian dance predicated on Ayn Rand’s contrived philosophical nonsense, Objectivism, is ridiculous. Humans are remarkably weak individually and nothing historically or anthropologically provides evidence that we are predisposed to individualism. Had we not grouped into social units to share our only strength, our brains, we would have died out long before we got a foothold. The heroic John Galt was as real as a Disney landscape ... nobody, including the Bill Gates’ and John Bezos’ find success without a whole lot of other humans to feed their success. The greatest idea in the world is only as good as the social structure that allows it to be realized. One is useless without the other.
2
Great column. Socialist countries are countries whose governments control banks and industry - not countries with social services and safety nets. Trump country wants to cut social services- we will become an economic backwater run by a loser whose only skill is defaulting on loans. This is the same guy who is trying to put tariff China - the country that owns most of our debt. But then Trump is as “dumb as a rock”.
Deutsche Bank and The Apprentice President”, our next financial crisis.
Ha! Best column I’ve read this year Gail! Thank you.
"The skyscraper got built, but nobody seemed to want to live there."
Some did, and then changed their mind when the developer got creative AFTER contracts were signed.
"The buyers—including lawyers, architects and brokers who worked on the $847 million project—received a 10 percent discount on their condos. It was “our way of thanking you for your continued hard work,” said a letter from the Trump camp to the buyers.
But the billionaire developer was feeling less generous four years later, after condo prices in the building jumped. Trump reneged on the deal, arguing that the gains “are profits we're entitled to” and that he was legally allowed to tear up the contracts."
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20160305/ISSUE01/303059990/trump-s-fight-with-friends-and-family-over-his-chicago-tower
Any of them who backed out are lucky. It's the least-efficient tall building in the city, scoring a 9 in EnergyStar ratings for structures. 100 is the best. 9 is not anywhere near 100.
And after all these years of the building being up, along the booming river walk, they still have mostly-empty retail space along that crowded river walk. The latest explanation is they're being "very selective".
https://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/broker-tries-another-trump-tower-twist
1
Socialism? Ok, he literally declared yesterday on his way to the plane that he was going to Ohio to tell auto maker GM they better not close any plants. He allegedly threatens CEO's all the time. He has a State run television. More like communism.
"The government's job isn't to pick winners and losers." Remember that line during the financial crisis? Come on Mitch, we know you're out there!
It does not matter who the politician is or what his/her policies. If the politician is a Democrat, then he/she is the most liberal, radical socialist on the planet according to the GOP. I bet someone has said it about the Blue Dogs and the Clintons, who are Rockefeller Republicans.
Scare tactics are all the Republicans have to offer. They have no ideas, nothing that will appeal to the average person. We see their tax cuts are only a way of taking the burden of operating the government away from those who can most afford it and putting it on the backs of those who cannot. We are cash cows for them and they have no concern for how we are slaughtered.
We are so far from any form of socialism, a system that favors the many and not the few. We are enthrall to a cancerous form of capitalism that grows wildly at the expense of its host. It will literally be the death of us all.
Deutsche Bank, whose financial support became Trump's defense against his multiple business failures during the campaign, and Boeing, who made safety features extra add-ons, are both examples of corporate greed run amok. May they both go down in flames and take their shareholders with them.
Socialism is a defense against the bullying, destructive, immoral behavior of unfettered capitalism. Tame the beast before it kills the planet.
2
Thanks for the upbeat sarcasm. I did read the recent NYT column on Trump's history with Deutsche Bank, which shows that his defaults put the bank at risk.
Now, Trump's ties to them are being investigated by two Congressional committees and the N.Y. Att'y. Gen'l.
Socialists like money, too. But, their mindset is that high taxes are necessary to ensure a safe and good quality lifestyle for all. Less want leads to less crime.
I live in France, where, in general, everyone agrees that high taxes are necessary. Some grumble of being taken advantage of, but still pay.
Guns are forbidden to all but the police (only specially trained), military and a handful of jewellers. Violence is almost non-existent. Certain groups specialize in pickpocketing and street begging.
Could we elect a Trump here? Doubtful. His brand of hate politics, anti-environmentalism, overall crass and insulting manner, and lack of education would not wash here. Marine le Pen looks tame compared to him, and her party is almost universally despised.
The French government pays for elections and debates. Printed material is paid for by the campaigns. Candidates need not seek foreign funding. French people read newspapers and are discerning. I haven't seen a gross tax fraud and cheat run for office here.
Gail, your long-ago note from Trump, the thousandaire, would have been sent up in Charlie Hebdo!
1
Socialism, shmocialism, Name calling is the specialty of the trumpists. And the last refuge of those without arguments.
Left vs right is a tiresome old battle. So last century.
The right won and the left lost (test: name any successful country with a communist model?). The majority of american democrats are not advocating for a communist government, just like they are not advocating open borders. It is just more fear mongering by trumpeters.
Unbridled capitalism has the seeds of its own destruction. So what we are discussing today, is how do we have a capitalist system where we regulated business without stifling it, but protecting people and the environment at the same time.
And this is especially important now that unemployment or its close cousin underemployment (the gig economy) will become more and more prevalent.
Stop listening to the demagogue in chief!!!
1
"..nobody makes capitalism look worse than Donald Trump."
Wrong. No other capitalist would manage to make traditional American politics look so bad as Trump ?
I admit it - in this story mostly about loans and banks and business, I was most nonplussed that an adult would send back the column and write "face of a pig" next to the picture. You'd think Deutsche Bank would have also figured it out that this is not a mature person to whom one makes loans.
1
Thanks Gail,
But Trump could give us Socialism. He gives cover to those who say that capitalism is inherently anti-social, while Socialism isn't inherently anti-capital. But for those who have made up their minds to dread Socialism, which Socialist programs shall we strike down? The military/the power grid/roads/seaports and airports/schools (already got that one)/water & sewer systems/post office (which would be a terrible blow to Amazon)/satellites -- what about those wonderful pictures in your pocket?
Let's face it, whether or not you consider yourself a capitalist or a socialist, a profit is not without honour except in the wrong hands.
1
Every economy in the world has a capitalistic private sector, and a socialistic public sector. You will only get incompetent administration of the public sector from people who excoriate socialism.
1
Don't be fooled by labels or phony identity politics. That's not what this is all about. Simply said, it's about honesty vs. hypocrisy. The rest is just corn syrup.
In -isms we trust!- Capitalism/Socialism ? We have a two sided coin, twins, paradoxes and contradictions-- from which our confederacy of foxes is happy to employ whatever works to anger, divide, conquer and gain admission the electoral college. The folly of all this is that nothing is getting done.
Shakespeare's Twelfth Night celebrated the Feast of Fools where "nothing that is so, is so" - and here we are: Our truth comes from Late Night jesters , our representatives speak for the very few, the separation of Church and State has been obliterated by a man who has broken most every one of the ten commandments, the scientific method has been replaced by Murphy's law and educated men and women choose talking points over facts . Twelfth Night is a comedy, because you end up with a stage full of couples rather than a pile of dead bodies, but there is a fine line between comedy and tragedy and we the people who are straddling that line shudder a little with each raging tweet. The final act may verify Feste's remark: "thus the whirligig of time brings in its revenges."
Just returned from Hanoi, capital of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam where they think much better of the honorable imperialist bomber John McCain than Trump does, and where the big bookstore is selling three shelves of biographies of emulatable Americans like Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Andrew Carnegie, and only three biographies of Ho Chi Minh. Possibly stocked for Trump's visit with Kim Jong Un, there are even five biographies (and ghosted autobiographies) of Donald Trump. Trump may be discrediting capitalism at home; but in the developing world he's being adopted by "socialists" who have wholeheartedly adopted private capital as the route to a developed future.
It's all hysterically funny. Until you realize that the whole Deutsche Bank story is basically a metaphor for this country. The GOP=Deutsche Bank, Trump=Trump and the rest of us are unsecured creditors or unpaid vendors left holding the bag once we've been fleeced by both.
Preet Bharara was asked during an interview this week if he considered recording a conversation with Trump. He said yes. He was also asked during that interview to play a name association game. When Andrew Cuomo’s name came up he said “Governor”, When he was asked to associate Donald Trump’s name to a word he said after a pregnant pause “President”. I was certain he was going to say “mob boss”. In the context of that interview and what we learn from this article “ mob boss” was the right answer.
'Well, Socialism Couldn’t Give Us Trump'
I'd much, much rather have Trump than Maduro.
1
The socialism rant is a distraction for the base but what they call socialism is something like medicare for all. Trump runs his hotels into bankrupcy and he will do the same to us with the Koch Brother on our back unless we squirem our way out.
Trump is going to help the US default on the national debt and then close down social security and medicare to pay for it. Talk about no choice!
I am pro-“socialist”-as that term had been redefined beyond credulity by the ignorant right.
I care about this country and my fellow citizens (excluding Limbaugh, Bannon, Coulter and almost anyone on Fox) and cheerfully wish cadet bone spurs out of office.
Soon!
How does anybody fail to grasp within a couple minutes of listening to Trump speak that he is a grifter, a huckster, and not even a clever one. He sounds exactly like the person he is. Wouldn't we all have thought that German investment bankers would see through him in a flash? Perhaps their blindness was due to differences in language and culture. It's harder to "read' someone who is speaking in a language different than your native one, even if you do understand the words.
I grew up in a “socialist” country in the 1950s and 1960s!
It was called the United States of America and it worked!
Decades ago we used to say “The poor get capitalism but the rich get socialism.” We’ve always protected them.
Having waded through quite a few lengthy listings of both “Trumps lies to date” and “Known Russian/Trump connections versus What might be in the Mueller report,” in both the Times and the Washington Post, this op-ed piece by Gail Collins points to the need for yet another comprehensive list.
During recent decades, various conservative voices have been raised to warn us of the dangers of initiating “socialized” health care in America. Dark, dark warnings.
On a per capita basis, Americans are currently paying twice as much for health care as are the citizens of any other major nation. Our median quality of health care places us in 35th position of the Earth’s 202 sovereign countries.
Yet, again and again, generally based on very flimsy reasoning, the Republicans warn us of the awful mistake it would be to look to the health care systems of Japan, Norway, the UK, Australia, France, Canada, etc. — and to follow suit. Single payer health care. National health care. Socialized medicine. Call it what you will. The Republicans predict gloom and doom.
I think a comprehensive listing of the GOP’s dire warnings - date, spokesman, quotation - would be very informative.
If nothing else, some of the pro-“for-profit health care” tirades I’ve heard over the years are LOL silly. This stuff is dark humor indeed, but often so ridiculous many of the quotes are laughable.
NYT, how about a list? Please!
1
The funny thing is, the bankruptcy laws that he uses so casually are completely socialist. True capitalism would have left him in the ditch many years ago and we wouldn't have agent orange in the office today.
Since the Republican have rejected Democratic Socialism, perhaps they can back Democratic Republicanism You know the kind of Republicanism that actually supports democracy, rather than reactionary tyrants. Otherwise, their practical political philosophy will be known, once and forever, as Fascistic Republicanism.
A corporation from an accounting or legal sense is treated as an individual but doesn’t mean they can’t be stupid. I know a lot of empty vessels who simply occupy space. The same goes for corporations who can be collectively lacking a lot of common sense.
It will be interesting when the woman from Deutsche Bank who was mentioned in the article Gail references was considered as the cream of crop of big time bankers. It’s going to quite interesting how she is going to conduct herself in a congressional hearing. How could she make such a risky loan to such a risky client and how many Mar A Lago type meetings/junket/weekends were you a part of mam?It’s all just so intoxicating and Trump knows it and preys on that. Her reputation is at stake.
Deutsche has a lot of questions coming its way.
1
I loathe Trump and his cronies--but I am missing the point here. Isn't this about two incredibly sleazy operations (DB and DT) playing footsie, but without defrauding or damaging anyone else? Unless I missed it, there's no taxpayer bail-out, no investors losing their shirts, no blackmail, and not even any laws broken (by pure luck). So it's kinda "victimless" and it's hard to be outraged.
Trump really is our default President:
Lost the popular vote by 3 million votes but won the Electoral College vote, so became president by default
Defaulted on innumerable loans and business contracts throughout his business life
Defaulted on his 3 marriage vows by engaging in adultry & divorcing twice
His default mode is lying rather than telling the truth
He has defaulted on his campion promise to Make America Great and has made our country and its image in the world much worse
But it is never de Trump’s fault
I dont get it? When did Gail become a real estate finance expert? Both Trump and Deutsche made a lot of money off those deals. Perhaps she should join their firm and show them a different path? Once she inject all her expertise, they wont make as much money, but their liberal conscience will be clear.
Socialism could give us Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro.
We may have some wacky outrageous tweets but the starvation rate in this country is near zero.
Socialism is way worse. Wake up and study economic history.
Borrow big, leverage on the basis of other people’s money, stiff whomever you can and never steal anything small.
And Mrs. Bernie borrowed $10 million on donor "pledges" that turned out to be a couple 100k, putting a College out of business.
And BTW, did you hear about her daughters fake woodworking classes that cost $350k?
Democrats should refuse to play the ridiculous game of justifying or defending socialism. This -ism or that -ism are just words to be twisted around. What really matters are policies, and Democrats should point to the fact that they have policies like single-payer healthcare and actual infrastructure plans that will help Americans. Two plus years of governance by Trump and the Republicans have given us tax cuts for the rich, a trade war, and defunding important programs to build a ridiculous wall.
If you are either gullible enough (to believe Trump is a business genius) or utterly lacking a moral/ethical compass (like Deutsche Bank seems to), it is not likely that you really worry much about the actual meaning of labels like Socialist, elitist, globalist. It is the sound of the insult and the joy of mindlessly chanting dumb stuff in the echo chamber that's really important. Because that's what winning is all about, right?
The skyscraper got built, but nobody seemed to want to live there.
Excellent column, Ms. Collins.
Laid end to end in this short op-ed, Ms. Collins has shown us a stunning picture of our elected leader who took pride in living the high life with other people's money and turning a large bankroll into a smaller one with amazing regularity. I would never have thought serial bankruptcy to be a path to the White House until now. Perhaps we shall soon see NAMBLA open a seminary.
Perhaps we just need a simple reform to our capitalist system for bankers and legislators. Give bank officers and members of Congress the wage and benefits of, say, a new enlistee in the military. Then, after calculating a profit and loss statement (for bankers) or doling out their appropriations (for Congress), they can divide up whatever is left over as their salaries.
1
When will the Dems stop allowing the Republicans to dominate the framing of the discussion on the word socialism. Socialism = Venezuela. Full stop. It bankrupts the country.
And yet places like Sweden or Canada or 20 to 30 other first world countries have universal healthcare, well funded public education, rational environmental, labour and social regulations and are much better places to live, have better fiscal balance sheets and don’t live with this incredibly stupid and destructive black or white existential debate over socialism. They are mixed economies/societies. Partially socialist and partially capitalist. Where socialism brings greater, fairer benefits to the population as a whole (as is clearly the case for universal basic health care) those countries are socialist. Where capitalism brings more effective and competitive benefits then those countries are capitalist.
It’s not too difficult to frame the debate as shades of grey and call out the GOP’s fear mongering on the word “socialism” and put the lie to it. Yet the Dems don’t do it ... to the demise and potential social and fiscal bankruptcy of the USA, because that’s your current trajectory.
So awesome to see that Trump got the presidency and his wealth by the greater fool maxim.
Please, America, don't be the greater fool come 2020.
When does "default" become "theft"?
judge kennedy's son worked at that bank when trump was granted the loans. kennedy and trump have been friends for decades. hmmmmmmmm
Wow! Hey everyone, Deutschebank is passing out free money! Wonder how long the bank will stay solvent.
Thank you, Ms. Collins for your wonderful writing.
Socialism is Very much like Fascism in that they both oppose a Free Market. Socialism has Never Worked anywhere in the World in its History and has a long list of FAILURES. I do not see social security or a Government supported health care as Socialism but as dividends and investments. These Democrat Politicians that want to OVER TAX the wealthy do not understand Capitalism, everyone KNOWS the Government is full of Graft and Waste when it comes to spending Our Tax dollars. People Who Earned there Money by far Reinvest it in Products , businesses in a much more prudent manner than Government...and for this author to only look at Trump's Risk then try and belittle him saying he only has 788 million as if that's Not Winning!!!! Is a Insult to all readers intelligence...Bottom line...thank God for Capitalism for not only did it give us a Businessman as President...We are all Enjoying a Standard unparalleled in the History of the World!
Trump calls himself the King of Debt and as we have all noticed he has made our national debt much worse and the Republicans cheered. You remember the Republicans don't ya? The ones constantly trying to impose fiscal restraint on Dems, at least when they are not in power that is, then they (R,s) spend like drunken sailors.
laying out in plain sight:
Deutschebank caught moneylaundering for Russia.
Trump gets funny money for being the very model of a self-promoted richie rich. A conman and a cad.
What's not to like?
No lender would touch Trump. Then, "According to Trump’s former real-estate partner... his post-’90s revival...[began] in the early 2000s with the Bayrock Group, which rented offices two floors down from Trump’s in Trump Tower. Bayrock was run by two investors who would help to change Trump’s trajectory: Tevfik Arif, a Kazakhstan-born former Soviet official who drew on seemingly bottomless sources of money from the former Soviet republic; and Felix Sater, a Russian-born businessman who had pleaded guilty in the 1990s to a huge stock-fraud scheme involving the Russian mafia." https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/12/21/how-russian-money-helped-save-trumps-business/
Later, Deutsche Bank found Trump to be someone they just 'couldn't' stop lending to. At the time, Deutsche Bank was a known (and, later, fined) money launderer for the Russian Mafia. Perhaps, regarding Trump, Deutsche Bank was made an 'offer they couldn't refuse'. In any case, Trump is our President, and his kind feelings toward Putin and his mafia is getting hard to ignore.
Trump would have us believe that the most corrupt form of capitalism is still better than socialism.
Republicans would have us believe that the worst candidate they could have selected for the Presidency, is still better than any Democrat.
Evangelicals would have us believe that a completely amoral Republican is still better than any liberal Democrat.
Fox News would have us believe that any fake news they produce is still better than any fact based story that comes from main stream media.
2
Can’t wait until 2022 for your piece on the Mueller investigation.
Certanly, ir is time of this new awesome era of "trumpism", a kind of socialism but much better well thinking, with wealth and social wel fare, for core base supporters!
Greetings!
The Alt-Left media is pushing Socialism hard. The colleges are also pushing it on the unsuspecting students as well. Instead of telling about the horrors of Socialism like Venezuela, Cuba USSR, they fill the students heads with fantasy Socialism where everyone makes the same and everyone gets a trophy.
Republicans love regulation. Criminalizing rape when the perpetrators are young black boys makes good sense to them, though they are not so sure when young white frat boys are the perpetrators. Abortion is an abomination, until the DNA contributed by the male is that of a conservative Republican. God forbid we allow ordinary people to benefit from publicly funded programs, but let no one stand in the way of using public debt (to be paid for later, by all our children) to finance tax cuts to benefit the wealthy. Here is the essential difference between the two parties: Democrats prefer government use its resources to provide the greatest benefit for the greatest number of people while Republicans prefer government use its resources to provide the greatest benefit for themselves and their posterity. To paraphrase Poppy Bush, Republican Debt-Socialism goooood; Democratic-Socialism baaaaad.
If corporations are persons they need to die sometime in their lifetime. I think Deutsche Bank has been on life support too long. And of course so has the Trump Corporation.
Trump's 'non stick' schtick rises to the level of performance art of the most indecent and contemptuous variety. What a fate, in one's declining years to be daily subjected to the most obnoxious qualities human nature has to offer in the form of this slippery, evidently unsinkable, rubber ducky of a POTUS.
This is an insulting article: insulting to the millions of victims of the gulags, Mao’s Great Famine, Cambodia’s killing fields, and Venezuela’s starvation. Comparing these horrors, even in jest, to Trump’s shenanigans is beyond outrageous. Violence, poverty and famine is what socialism gave to the world and any obfuscation of this historical record is no better than Holocaust denial. What social democracy gave to the world is very different but the Nordic countries, so beloved of the current crop of “democratic socialists”, are not socialist at all. There have been plenty of financial and corruption scandals in these countries and they were dealt with by legal means, as they should. But any attempt to defend socialism as a system has to acknowledge that its violent failure.
Hopefully the NYT and other journalists can dilute the “S-word scare” and help people understand that we already have very popular socialist systems in place in our nation, including Social Security and Medicare. It’s also useful to discuss the fact that government should exist to serve the health, safety and welfare of the citizenry.
What Republicans are calling the Venezuelan economy Socialism, is not even close, it is simple totalitarianism, not even Soviet style Marxism, just plan kleptocracy kept going by distributing the pl9under to those at the bottom of the pile.
Enforced by terrorist tactics. Now even they are seeing the results and are revolting. Maduro only has a short time left.
One could repeat ad infinitum the facts of Trump's frauds, scams, and failures. His supporters will still believe that he's a business genius. One might as well read "Hamlet" to a dog.
I want nothing to do with socialism. When I think about it, I think of the United Soviet Socialist Republic. This isn’t a socialist republic.
5
@Mark
Your comment reveals how little you understand about economics, politics, and linguistics.
104
@Mark
So I guess you're going to be giving up public schools, roads, funding for hospitals. Yup, all those things that hold a community together. And please do not even *think* about accepting the benefits of those socialist plots: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security!
120
@Mark The US is already "socialist." Actually ALL government is socialist, varying only as to what and to what extent.
36
Capitalism goes and has always gone where the money is. Socialism tries and has tried to go where the needs of working people are.
There ain't enough room in the town for the both of them.
Currently capitalism is gorging on the town (earth), workers are the main course, and socialism is at the city limits, baffled.
Yet as a socialist once said, "For decades nothing happens. Then in weeks, decades happen."
1
Gail, you have a beautiful face. The BEST face.
Seriously.
160
Yes, Deutsche Bank seems to have some sort of strange banking practices to have continued to loan money to Trump in spite of his many failures. There was a woman involved in this who became friends w/the family...her name escapes me. Jared was a customer, too, and she pushed him as a customer for her bank now investigating all these deals and her. Yes, what does this tell us about the merits of socialism? Ha ha. If you've got a Trump and a Deutsche Bank in either pocket, you're halfway there. My favorite part of the Deutsche Bank story is Trump suing them when they asked for their money back using natural disaster, the recession, as his plan. Part of being in this so-called democracy is that one has to read and be knowledgeable in order to participate. Trump's still in w/his frankly incomparable record of lies, cheating behavior, bankruptcies, never seen tax filings, utterances, pals, collusion, obstruction, disastrous dealings w/former allies and pulling out of good alliances, yet we the American public, continue with him as Deutsche Bank did. Where is the regulatory body to bring Donald J. Trump to reality? Can we wait until 2020? Looks like it. Mueller? Report time.
There is confusion about Scandinavia. They are very high, some 70-75% on the economic freedom index. That is not Socialist by any standard, even if they have social programs.
The political label "socialism" is another matter, on both left and right.
1
The US rarely shows its lack of critical thinking ability as much as when talking about this topic. We are supposedly social animals, designed to help the entire group. With all the socialism in the form of corporate welfare, and the poor regulations that lead to 2008, we have clearly retreated from our genetic and social destiny. Hence, we are destined to play to the broken plutocrats, leading to a total breakdown of our society.
1
Trump's whole jam: Socialism for me; market forces for thee.
What is bankruptcy protection, except for socializing the cost of your private losses? And what is the ownership structure of the NFL? -- the most unadulterated version of Socialism currently operating. (and Trump's greatest ambition was to own a franchise)
6
Democrats define socialism as government involvement in helping people in ways that private enterprise cannot or will not do. Understandably companies don't get involved in businesses with no profit. That is reasonable. If private enterprise could do everything there would be little need for taxes. Therefore, taxes themselves are part of socialism in that they pay for armed forces, police, roads and bridges, and everything government provides. Taxes used to benefit people is the Democratic definition of socialism.
4
Seeing the name Trump on that building in Chicago reminds me of the old Don Rickles joke that it was the banks that required Trump put his name on all the buildings so it would make them easier to find when they needed to repossess them. He was definitely the default king.
11
You and others keep falling into the trap of using the terms Socialism and Capitalism. The reader is then left to impose their understanding of what these things mean. What we need are specific proposals and actions. I do not particularly care if something is Socialist or Capitalistic. I just want to analyze it and decide if it will work.
3
@Robert: " I just want to analyze it and decide if it will work."
Fat chance. The Republicans will not allow that. They've been shouting down opposing opinions as Socialism for over 100 years.
Hey--I am all for socialism for health care, education, good roads, the right to not go hungry, the right to have a house to live in--stuff that makes a healthy civilization. and I am 74 years old. There's lots of older folks who are for socialism also.
7
There is a reason Trump and the GOP keep disparaging the word socialism. Number one is to divert attention from Trump's obvious ignorance of about anything and the GOP's willingness to ignore it.
Socialism is a means of spreading the cost of some parts of society which would be too expensive for any one or group of citizens to afford on their own. These are some examples of socialism as it exists in the U.S. today.
Public schools, roads, bridges and other infrastructure. Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, every level of government, libraries, law enforcement, fire protection, FEMA, the Farm Bill, many more examples. We are about to socialize the destruction from the midwest floods.
What is missing from the list is healthcare which is already too expensive for many and the costs continue to rise. If someone has a better idea to extend coverage to all of our citizens while reducing the cost, then they need to bring it forward. Frankly, I think all of the gimmicks have been tried with little or no lasting success.
9
Sadly, American voters who did not go to college and who lived in southern and rust-belt states were just as star-struck and foolish as Deutsche Bank. They were sucked in by a narcissistic con man whose twin talents seem to be the cultivation of white nationalism and the making of audacious lies. Via indictment, impeachment or the 25th Amendment, America must rid itself of Donald Trump, a twisted wreck of a human being and the worst US President in history.
42
@OldProf not only the worst US president in history, but a top contender for the inglorious designation of worst US citizen in history.
1
Gail, is the "Pig Story" the new "Shamus"?
2
Not only would socialism not give us Trump, it would remove all choices in our lives. The government would make their choices for us.
13
@Jeoffrey
A lot of people in this country count on those like Jaco to block any kind of reform that would help ordinary Americans. They tried to block Medicare and Social Security using the same "arguments."
194
@jaco
It seems to me that the government of the republican executive branch, the republican supreme and ever more republican federal courts, and the bloc of republicans in the house and, sadly, still there as a majority in the senate are making plenty of decisions for "us." Have you ever heard of social democracy, which gives a higher standard of living, greater longevity, free education and healthcare, etc., to its citizens. Perinatal mortality, which has been the index of civilization for over a century, has been going up (getting worse) in the USA for decades. Social democracy is the way to go.
175
@jaco
When the time comes you do not have to collect Social Security or take Medicare!
If government doesn't control certain aspects of our life, then corporations will. Those corporations would quickly degrade into criminal organizations.
130
Universal medical care in Australia since the mid-70s - called "Medicare" - funnily enough. No socialism here. In fact, with successive governments privatising every damn thing, we are arguably further from socialism than the USA.
These Republicans aren't naive, and they ain't stupid; they're against universal health care for some other reason.
13
@A. F. G. Maclagan
"These Republicans aren't naive, and they ain't stupid; they're against universal health care for some other reason"
And that reason is commonly called the "insurance lobby", amongst other special interest groups
No American industry relies more on socialist local, state and federal government welfare than the real estate industry. Tax codes are full of " incentives."
Moreover, in addition there are very close historical ties to organized crime in the construction related trade unions. Corruption conceals and launders their money.
The first and last best capitalist business deal that Donald Trump ever made was his selection of New York City real estate baron father. Deutsche Bank and Donald Trump were made for and deserved each other.
And when, where and why they both came together you must suspect that a former KGB agent who was stationed in East Germany during the Cold War and speaks fluent German is smiling and smirking about what happened.
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is no socialist.
14
I see where the social democracies of Scandinavia totally dominate the top of the happiest countries list. The U.S. is well down the list at No. 18.
17
Mike Pence said that "Medicare for All" has "impoverished nations". And he concluded that this is socialism. Well I may assured our dear American neighbors that we have "Medicare for all" in Canada. We are not an "impoverished nation". And we are still a very capitalist country. And nobody in Canada go bankrupt because of medical costs. Are you not tired to listen to demagogue like Pence, in the pocket of Big Business spreading his lies about Medicare?
37
@Wilbray Thiffault:
Dense Pence has not had an original thought in decades.
When he is on TV, the sound goes off and all one remembers is a bobbing head.
1
And don’t forget that Middle Eastern socialist country, Israel.
In spite everything, Mr. Trump is entertaining. Certainly more fun to watch than Mr. Obama. Almost like Netflix. Maybe that is why he was elected.
3
@Andreas
President Obama coolly deliver some really funny stuff, including a few well placed jabs at Trump, during a Correspondents Dinner a few years back.
This was while the helicopters were enroute to take out Osama bin Laden. The fate of his Presidency was on the line too with the success or failure of the mission.
Now that is a performance as good as anything else I can think of.
Trump, on the other hand is like watching reruns of the Gong Show, only his performances are probably what would have been left on the cutting room floor.
5
Too funny -;)
Like the US, I’m sure that Germany has plenty of B-list celebs with an adoring public, but it does seem odd that the expansion-hungry bankers at Deutsche Bank were so easily seduced by the tawdry tabloid celebrity of Donald Trump in the ’90’s, that they threw due diligence and financial acumen to the winds- and continued to do so despite Trump’s loan defaults. Fast forward to the present and Deutsche Bank’s integrity committee has discovered that its hard nosed(?) bankers were just as susceptible to Trump’s lies and bombast as the American voters who put him in the Oval Office in 2016. Sad.
6
Is it ok for Trump to get huge loans from banks at the risk of defaulting. Why isn’t the way he built his wealth ever come into question? Kicking out poor from buildings, buying up more buildings. Isn’t this another form of socialism? He simply took handouts from banks and built his empire.
8
What does Trump own?
The ever-increasing trade deficit? The national debt?
Whatever he signs (which looks like the EKG of someone subsisting on cheeseburgers) takes that golden escalator toward bankruptcy.
And now he's signing Bibles....
14
@Michael Steinberg
Indeed. Evangelical Christian support for Trump is launching that religion into the land of irrelevance. But then again, most evangelicals are white and the old white evangelical church did nearly nothing to advance civil rights, indeed many of its leadership worked against it--see Pat Robertson and a host of others.
1
Perhaps Deutsche Bank should donate the huge assets it shows on its balance sheet (in the form of Trump loans) to the German government, so Germans can pay their fair share to NATO by collecting on Trump's loans. That might hush him up for awhile.
7
I see Chuck Shumer is going for a twofer with his suggestion to rename a Senate office building after John McCain. This being an implicit endorsement of Joe Biden, thus a slam on the "socialists" & an egg on Trump's head, turning the "anyone but Trump" people around to support the former vice president rather than splitting their votes. Clever.
2
Takes two to tango...
Without the support of the banks, Trump has nothing.
2
@Paul: I believe that Mr. Ford said that if the people understood how banks operate, they would revolt.
@Paul plus the Saudi and Russian cash...
So this isn't really a piece on economic theory as the title suggests... it's just an opportunity to bash Trump. Fine. However, bashing an extreme example of bad capitalism to justify your thoughts that not all socialism is its most extreme form is exactly why we have Trump as president to begin with. The pendulum swings one way and back farther the other way when we keep peddling junk articles like this. Economics and social policy are more far more complex than a snake oil salesman's history of failure.
@Chris:
A properly regulated capitalist system would have put the kibosh on Trump 20 years ago, and would fire the bankers that he suckered into loaning him all that money when he was clearly a disaster as a credit risk. That's how I read the article. Trump is an egregious edge case, but in this case, it shows the flaws in the system, which he exploited to epic advantage.
Perhaps we should put Deutsche Bank into some context and engage in facts, logical conjectures and just a modicum of hyperbole:
Other than Dubai and the Cook Islands, Deutsche Bank has engaged in more corrupt practices, broken more international laws and laundered more Russian $$$ than any other western bank, taking on so many suspect, non-performing trash loans that it will not survive without a merger or bailout. The pending colossus of a looming failed merger will remind us all of Greece, Argentina and Italy - to name a few.
It seems, however, to be the best the Europeans are capable of doing at this moment of peril and soap opera calamity. If they failed, which they won't, D.B. is almost certain to go down as a flaming mess of bad loans, dirty money and grossly negligent mismanagement that could easily bleed into the criminal.
They are, after all, the go to western bank to launder money - we know this because they admitted it and paid substantial fines - but as usual no one went to jail, banking is a great racket to be in.
The ECB and EU know this and much more and they're all playing 'hide the wienie' until they can figure something out and maybe save face.
If the bank were domiciled in the U.S., the SEC, FDIC, Federal Reserve and the SDNY would have been all over them years ago. I suspect the firm's name will soon be tossed into the dust bin with Lehman Brothers. The scams and stories are just breaking; wait until we hear the rest of the story...
3
Socialism has been dubbed a dirty word by the right only because to capitalists it means they will be obligated to pay their fair share. That fleecing the peons will be more difficult. Nothing more.
6
Capitalism, and its myopic focus on short-term returns to investors, is blind to the environmental free-fall we're in and, if unchecked much longer, will annihilate us.
Other systems may pose dangers of their own, but our nasty habit of mistaking capitalism for democracy is a sure bet for a broken planet.
Haven't yet met a corporation that breathed oxygen or loved anyone or anything. But, by god, they've got rights!
5
Too many people haven't got a clue what socialism means, or communism, for that matter. They throw those terms around interchangeably, as if they are the same. They're not.
The military is the most socialist department in the country. Health care is covered completely, for servicemen, their wives and children. There is free day care on military bases. Subsidized housing. Subsidized shopping at the px, where they can buy groceries cheaper. Education is another benefit that is covered. Yes, they earn them, but we the taxpayers fund them. If they don't believe in socialism, then dump the px, stop subsidizing housing, tell them if they want an education to take out loans like the rest of us, and stop providing free day care. Stop with the full coverage for health care, too...institute co-pays and all of the other charges that ordinary Americans pay.
The GOP has also decided to subsidize the super wealthy and corporations with the tax cut, which is permanent, compared to the measly tax cut given to working Americans, which expires in 2022? 2024? When the unregulated market crashed the economy in 2008, socialism saved it with the huge taxpayer bailout. If it was true capitalism, those businesses that made risky, bad, stupid decisions should have been allowed to fail. No one went to jail, or was even charged. But God forbid that the government help ordinary people, who don't have lobbyists and can't make multi million dollar donations to politicians.
5
The sales pitch Trump gave Deutche Bank is the same one he gave the country to gain the presidency. Boy do i have a bridge to sell you and 45 percent of the country bought it along with his other lies, illegality and endless litigation. How nice for the .5 percent who cashed in as Trump sacked the treasury for personal gain and a tax cut.
And where is the bridge they bought? the saved coal mines, a better health care plan, the infrastructure? All this pain and angst just to see Trump's scowling face and hear the empty bluster. Thanks GOP, you did a heck of a job.
3
The amazing article by David Enrich raises the possibility that there'd be no "Donald Trump" as we know it if not for the bizarre, seemingly self-defeating behavior of Deutsche Bank. At least it seems bizarre - but there's always an explanation. Strong implications of money laundering by Russians already have attached to Mr. Trump, and I'm hoping the work of Mr. Mueller and his team has included getting to the bottom of that. I wonder, was DB caught up in that too? I assume the mix of factors also includes the same sort of greedy, unethical, self-directed mindset that led bankers to securitize, slice up and sell what they knew to be garbage mortgage loans.
Anyway, attempts to stoke the fear of “socialism” - which the swamp dwellers are redefining(*) as "whatever the Democratic candidates propose" - will only work with the willfully obtuse. Which is to say, voter turnout is all that’s needed to sweep these clowns out of our lives.
(*) NOBODY is arguing that government should take over the means of production.
2
Anat Admati, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, said she found it shocking that “a corporation the size and complexity of Deutsche Bank is so poorly governed.”
Now extrapolate that to a country the size and complexity of the United States and wonder how this rambling, insulting, unqualified, inexperienced, unstable, vindictive reality star won the presidency and consider why it is a perfectly rational response to refuse to loan him any more votes.
4
No one is mentioning that DB blindly financed the Cosmopolitan casino in Las Vegas. Their risk controls are so lax they continued to fund after the borrower (Bruce Eichner, another beaut..!) defaulted and senior management had no idea. DB ultimately took ownership and lost over $2bn after it sold to Blackstone. This whole story is as much about horrible oversight at and of a financial institution that the regulators should not allow to operate in the US.
1
Millions off food stamps, unemployment at 50 year low, lowest recorded unemployment for blacks and latinos, a half million manufacturing jobs coming back, wages slowly starting to rise. Not bad. I'll take it.
@Tim: "Let me borrow a trillion dollars and I could create the illusion of prosperity too."
1
The fact that Trump was able to become a billionaire is conclusive proof that Capitalism is a total humbug.
It is neither efficient, rational, or humane. It brings out the worst in people, and encourages up to trample our own planet.
I think of Trump as a sort of negative savior, who is showing us that the capitalist way, has to be the wrong way.
Please don't crucify him until our transformation is complete. When we - all of us, working together - get it right, Trump will burn out, and go straight down.
And remember - "American Nationalism" is an oxymoron when some - many of us - get singled out as an "exception groups". All of us, together, will lead the way, as we walk down off our giant hate heap, into a better world.
Thank you Donald J. Trump - your really showed us!
1
A very nice summary. Thank you.
If I were a greedy billionaire of comic book proportions - like Trump, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, et al. - I would do all I could to keep ALL of the country’s money in my bank account. I would tell less knowledgeable persons that “Socialism” (a limited sharing of wealth to ensure certain minimum standards are met for all), is evil. I would also NOT tell those less knowledgeable folks that I am the biggest beneficiary of government largesse (Socialism for the Benefit of Only One) to ever walk the planet.
My guess is that Mr. Trump has spent little or none of his own money since being elected. And he has done nothing that even remotely resembles a reasonable job, or even made a minimal effort to do so, since becoming President. He does nothing but entertain and enrich himself, 24/7. And he does this with taxpayers’ money, all the while depriving us of a true President who might actually try to lead the country in a helpful direction.
3
Hey....too much horded cash laying around for grabs.
Idle money in a Trump tower earns just as much laying idle in the vault of a bank.
The oligarchs holding horded cash have national government central banks to bail them out.
How much is Trump Tower in Chicago worth to Deutsche Bank today?
1
Prediction:
Based on her understandable, but erroneous, belief that Deutsche Bank was in the money lending business, Ms Collins mocks the company as incompetent and irrational.
But she's wrong.
Deutsche Bank wasn't in the the money lending business. It was in the money laundering business.
Trump and his talent for constructing empty buildings, bankruptcy, and elastic morality, had exactly the skill set they needed.
3
Department of Irony Also:
Trump and his Republican followers denounce socialism, but isn't Vladimir Putin the Uber-Socialist? Isn't he, in fact, a Communist?
According to Trump, Vlad can do no wrong. According to Trump's slavish worshippers, Trump can do no wrong, either.
What is it with these people?
2
Last week (before the Deutsche Bank news broke out), I was explaining to my nephew in India about credit scores, ratings etc. He wanted to know what DJT's credit score was! I wonder if your readers can provide an answer.
1
Focus on a salient point - fire departments. Wouldn't it be better if there were competition and only the outfit you subscribed to would put out your fire? Otherwise it and the rest would let it burn. Free market - not socialism. Competing fire companies worked so well in the past that it's unheard of now. Ideological purity forsaken - what a shame, right?
1
The fire department argument is a good one. It’s one of the many socialized services we all benefit from including police and military.
A similar but only partially socialized service is trash pickup. Even though We live within the bounds of metro Nashville, public sanitation services don’t extend to our neighborhood. We have to contract for our own pickup with a private company. Consequently there are at least three companies picking up trash on my street on three different days. Plus another company that picks up recycling. So that’s triple the machinery, fuel and manpower necessary.
And since there is zero difference among them-they all use similar trucks and we all have the same wheeled plastic trash cans-I chose our service arbitrarily.
Thanks, capitalism, for being so wonderfully inefficient and wasteful.
I wish that the Democratic party would think of comebacks like this whenever the Twitter-In-Chief tries to brand his opponents with easy to repeat "zingers". Just like "low energy Jeb" was the end of Bush's presidential aspirations, Trump's tactic (like any childish schoolyard bully) is to destroy by labeling Harvard law professor, Elizabeth Warren as Pocahontas would demolish her political ambitions. Dems must quickly nip every Tweet in the bud just as Meghan McCain did when Tweety Trump sought to tarnish John McCain's glorious, larger than life war hero status. Unfortunately a large segment of the US population equates bullying with strength which paints a picture of a nation in serious moral & ethical decline. It will take an entire generation to stem the tide of uninformed ignorance & intolerance to avoid further damage to not only our reputation around the world but the psychic damage done to our children & our children's children in having such a small puny man baby leading our country. The difference between the Democrats & Donald Trump's GOP party is not Socialist vs. Capitalist. It is Democratic Socialist Capitalism vs. Crony Capitalism the likes of which include countries that have intolerance of differences, low levels of happiness (e.g. opioid epidemic). Corrupt capitalism has high rates of income inequality & the lack of reverence for intellect & creativity in its citizenry & a tendency to blindly follow rather than to be actively engaged in the body politic.
4
Funny thing is, the GOP attempts to brand any Dem program "Socialism," but they demand that the nation provide massive welfare to business interests.
Then, in a perpetual state of hypocrisy that is so normalized that no one even remarks on it, the GOP paints welfare programs for actual citizens (you know, those pesky folks for whom the U.S. constitution was written and its government created to serve) as immoral and un-American.
So wait: welfare for corporations and billionaires = good
And welfare for U.S. citizens who actually pay taxes = bad?
And programs that benefit actual U.S. citizens = 'socialism'?
It think maybe I'll find my news and political discourse from people who have real ideas about how to move the nation forward, not those whose arguments exist solely in Straw Man fallacies, misdirection, and bad faith. Only Democrats are engaged in policy discussions; the GOP is a joke.
2
If our capitalism is so great, why are so many Americans addicted, suicidal, or both? And why does America rank 18th in the world for "happiness," anyway? Why do the European countries which have the "socialist" things in their capitalistic system that Bernie wants for ours at the top of this same "happiness" report, not just this year but every year? Young Americans are breaking out of the "socialist" hypnosis, just as they are breaking out of the Israel is the greatest thing since sliced bread right-wing hypnosis simultaneously. And these two examples of being "woke" are obviously related in terms of a growing sense of injustice among America's young, who outnumber the old oblivious to injustice and unfairness more and more every year. Thus, we can expect our politics to look more and more "socialist" in the future, and for America to start inching very slowly in the direction of economic justice and happiness on the level of Denmark's or Finland's. And it's a good thing, too.
1
What the US needs is a president who will keep America prospering with optimal healthcare for all not medicare for all and a world at peace with no more regime change wars and bulk of the overseas US forces back home with their families.
1
Most Trump skeptics concede that he has a net worth of about 4 billion. The skeptical concede two billion. The most skeptical talk of $700 million. However low you go, the number far exceeds what he started with, which the Times alleges to be $60 million. When someone has accumulated a fortune, even if less than he claims, the portrayal of him as a loser flies in the face of the truth.
@michjas The unique irony of modern pseudo-capitalism is that one can "win" by losing. Don't believe me? Trump dies it every day!
Not a bad column for a change. Isn't it an irony? While the Republicans are trying to scare us about socialism, the every socialist leader in the world is using Trump to point out the evils of capitalism to their people.
1
The more we learn about the Trumps, it becomes clear that giving banks a slap on the wrist and almost no prosecutions after the recession - juicing laissez faire capitalism- has brought us to this day. We have a faux-capital President, a man who excels at manipulating zeros and a grotesque relationship with anyone who might hand him some greasy dollars. Trump is not a great businessman, he just a schmo who takes out credit cards to pay off his credit cards.
3
Here we are, in a country where bright but poor people can't get into fine universities because the likes of Trump and his progeny are taking up classroom space. And those who disparage socialism go on about how that system discourages initiative and rewards the mediocre.
What am I missing here?
In the normal run of things, an incompetent President can ride on the waves, secure in the knowledge that his advisors will watch his back and keep him from the worst consequences of his foolishness. Unfortunately most Presidential advisors have now either resigned or been imprisoned instead of their Great Leader.
Here in Germany politicians are grateful to Mr T and also to Theresa May, who make their own small-scale incompetence look like skilful management. While the Earth slithers down the slope towards environmental disaster, the free world's political leadership (?) is fiddling while Washington burns. It may be time to take a long hard look at the political machinery needed to remove a blatantly corrupt and incompetent President from office - especially since there is no guarantee that another such superhero will not take his place.
It looks like the blind men's definition of an elephant.
Let us say a firm makes 500 litre refrigerator for years, it then plans to make a 1000 litre refrigerator. Should it or should it not?
In capitalism the firm is free to make but the customer decides whether the move is successful.
In socialism, the firm will have to apply to the government, and a bunch of bureaucrats will decide whether it should or not based on fancy economic models.
Which system you prefer?
And if you think this is far fetched, I have lived under this 'socialist' model where people had to apply to govt bureaucrats to get permission to buy tyres /tires for their vehicles.
It is a disgusting system of government where people suffering is high and the government bureaucrats enjoy. Don't do it.
You should recall how people fled the socialist states and governments had to build walls not to prevent invasion but to prevent escape.
The capitalist system has its flaws but don't throw the baby with the bathwater.
Staggering...right? The bank should be disallowed from operating in US. It is a stupendous loss of morality let alone ability to make money. If this is capitalism, let’s give socialism a try.
From the Declaration of Independence: All men are endowed with certain unalienable Rights, [incluiding] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ... [T]o secure these rights, Governments are instituted ..., deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
Government is meant to be active in enabling the pursuit of Happiness. Leaving this purely to the free market makes many of the governed "unhappy" (winners and losers). People with healthcare are more likely to have life and happiness; those with a living wage with one rather than three jobs is likely to have more liberty. The role of the American government is to be pro-active, as envisaged by the original declaration.
If regulations and social programs are Socialism, then America was intended to be Socialist.
Hey! If I say I am too big to fail, ya think they will makes loans to me looking the other way at the same time?
Socialism failed in every country it was ever tried. Calling every social or welfare program “socialist” is like calling a boxing match “an assault”. Actually the social welfare programs in Europe were instituted after World War 2 to forestall the spread of actual socialism, which is the state’s ownership of the means of production. And the headline is insulting: socialism gave us much worse than Trump. Just ask people who have had the misfortune to live under it. Wouldn’t a Venezuelan refugee much prefer Trump’s America to Maduro’s socialist paradise?
The economic argument against socialism in the United States is bizarre... Here we have a country which has military bases all over the world, waged wars against democratically elected presidents (Mosaddegh), coup d'etats and completely blockaded all socialist/communist countries economically. Meanwhile they were the only country in the West left completely unharmed by WW2. As a European, all the socialism-liberalism divide is absurd. It's as if geopolitical factors never come into play into their "American" thinking.
57
@Daniel
You seem to be confusing cause and effect. It's exactly because the US has avoided Socialism that it is so strong.
3
Socialism is great... until you run out of other peoples money.
@Mystery Lits Right, we've just got to stop all this socialistic stuff like the military, police, fire fighters, highways, aircraft regulations, air craft companies (subsidized by military), university research....
It's great when the meritocratic market rewards me (and my pals on our inter-locked corporate boards) with the money we so richly deserve. It's our companies, our stuff, ours.
PS. In a market economy, the distribution of the value of productivity isn't a function of some objective morality, but of the relative bargaining power of the the market participants. Define the rules under the philosophy of Daffy Duckism, as the US has done over the past 40 years, we, the "other people" have all of the money. And it's ours, ours, ours.
We'll fight you tooth and nail not to give "our money" to you, because we might run out -- and not be able to buy slots for our children at Stanford anymore.
1
Though she may not realize it, Gail's article is not an argument against capitalism. It's an argument for capitalism. Let me explain:
Bankruptcy law is an un-capitalist, merciful protection enforced by the state. And as a merciful society we should have bankruptcy protections.
Trump took advantage of these protections, but ultimately the market punished him: Deutsche Bank took a risk by lending to Trump, learned from it, and now the bank will no longer lend to him. Trump's election is a result of our political establishment failing us, not the free market.
Capitalism within the rule of law accounts for and punishes amoral and incompetent people like Trump. The problem with Socialism is that it does not have adequate built-in-checks on amorality and incompetence.
14
@Erasmus Olson capitalism rewarded those who caused the financial collapse with golden parachutes. How were they punished by capitalism?
49
@Erasmus Olson
If capitalism is so great, how come it lets large corporate and Wall Street executives off the hook when its seamier side shows up? (product failures resulting in death, financial meltdowns), while the "little guy" pays in prison for smaller crimes? Where is the "adequate built-in checks on amorality and incompetence"? I see none.
12
@Erasmus Olson
That’s not true. During the Great Recession do you know who got bailed out by We the People? The banks! The banks which caused the Great Recession.
12
"But Donald," sputtered his top accountant, "how are you going to pay back Deutsche Bank?"
Trump, watching a rerun of Dallas, muted the TV and, as a smirk crossed his lips, turned and answered, "I'm not."
Whether it's WrestleMania or the Presidency, for Trump all the world's a TV show.
6
What a sweet racket the GOP has going. Fleece the peons in order to further enrich the already rich. Then when they can't pay the bills because the rich are no longer paying their share they demand the fleece-ees cover the difference. To add insult to injury they will blame the fleece-ees and their socialist ways for bankrupting the country. In the meantime the fleecer's will clean up again by buying out the bankrupted fleece-ees at deeply discounted prices as a result of the fleecing the fleecers instilled on the fleece-ees. The fleece-ees never seem to learn. Sometimes I think they enjoy being scammed.
14
@Rick Beck
... and sometimes you tell a contractor you'll pay only 80% of their bill because you're a bully and know it's unlikely they'll file suit. Can't afford a lawyer, can't afford the loss, they eat it and move on.
Some folks call that free market capitalism. I call it criminal.
1
Didn't we do this on a national scale with the subprime mortgage crises in 2007?
2
Republicans are great at scare tactics.
They always say liberals want to make the US a socialist country like Venezuela.
They never talk about the real countries liberals point to which are pretty much all the other first world countries, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, etc.
We already have socialism. We have public grammar school and high school, Social Security, and Medicare.
To that, the other first world countries add some tech school or university and some form of universal health care.
We pay twice as much per capita for health care and have parts of the country with infant mortality rates of a second world country.
Those countries don't have the poverty and poor schools we have.
They have better economic mobility than we have, the ability to 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps.'
On the other hand, we beat them at incarceration rates and billionaires.
And people don't think but because we don't want to invest in education, we end up paying for welfare and police and prison.
We also pay the opportunity cost of people not getting educated and working and paying taxes.
1081
@Independent
They also don't tell you that Venezuela is not a "socialist" country. Over 73% of the business are privately owned. They are a blended economy.
It is however a Kleptocratic quasi-dictatorship.
America too is a blended economy.
Any "ism" is only as good as those running it and it's people. Capitalism can fail just as easy, as history proves. Crooks, con's, grifters and thieves will ruin any country when they control the levers of Gov.
Look'n at you Trump et al...
67
@Independent
The Republicans use socialism as a scare word, but as you write, "We already have socialism. We have public grammar school and high school, Social Security, and Medicare."
If the GOP gets its way, those awful socialist programs will be eliminated too, in favor of privatized everything, including toll roads instead of freeways. Maybe we can even go back to privatized fire departments, so if you haven't got the cash, they'll let your house burn down.
53
Other countries don’t have Betsy DeVos ruining public education.
57
Democrats are making a huge mistake.
the next election should be a referendum on Trump's
corruption.
instead the Democrats are talking about socialism
which is a proven loser in American elections.
2
A question I've pondered ever since November 2016: Why do Trump's "Make America Great Again" fans overlook his Russian connections? Shouldn't they be bothered by his coziness with Putin and worried about communist influences on his administration? Are they even aware that "socialism" and "communism" have been considered identical by anxious American conservatives since the 1950s? Maybe it's the money--we've always been told that in communist countries life is harsh and people are poor, but when we see Russian oligarchs who have small yachts to take them to their large yachts, the picture goes a bit hazy. No wonder Trump fans are confused.
100
@carrobin
can you please list all these Russian connections you claim Trump has. Also since when did it become illegal to do business with Russians. Even CNN has had programs on touting investing in Russia.
@carrobin
Let's see. Obama told Putin he'd have more flexibility after he was elected, and Putin invaded the Ukraine after Obama was re-elected; Obama refused to sell weapons to the Ukraine, but Trump did. Trump increased sanctions on Russia.
Podesta's consulting firm was lobbying to repeal the Magnitsky Act while he was Hillary's campaign manager, without registering as a foreign agent.
Russian oligarchs fabricated the Steele report and nothing in it is even true, to help Hillary.
Russian oligarchs paid a million dollars to Bill Clinton and donated billions to the Clinton Foundation. Coincidently, The Secretary of State approved the sale of Uranium One, which controls 20% of the uranium in the ground in the US, to Russian oligarchs and had the FBI shut down their investigation into money laundering and tax evasion by Uranium One.
In comparison, when Trump was a private citizen, not an elected official or employee of the federal government, he had business dealings in Russia. He expressed admiration the Putin, in international relations, had advanced the interests of Russia. [ In contrast to Obama and Hillary who liked to bow to foreign leaders and extract personal gain, respectively.]
Russia cheated on SALT and Obama/Hillary/Kerry did nothing. Trump has voided the treaty and is upgrading technology.
To rational observers, Trump avoided creating personal animosity with the leader of a foreign country but has acted with the interests of Americans.
4
@ebmem - Your comment is filled with out right falsities, Fox News talking points, and distortions & exaggerations or deliberate omits of important contributing events which led to Trump's decision. Number One distortion or outright lie is the idea that Russian oligarchs fabricated the Steele dossier or report. Actually, Republicans first hired the company to look into allegations of Trump's criminality although after he won the nomination they no longer needed the info. Secondly, if nothing in the report was true then why did Mueller indict 12 officers of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate of the General Staff since the charges against them corroborated the allegations from Steele’s sources. Also, the rumor about Hillary Clinton approving the sale of Uranium to Russia is misleading since it was the USA Committee on Foreign Investments consisting of 9 members as well as the approval of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The President of the USA is the only one with the power to stop the sale which didn't happen. Any charge of Clinton being in cahoots with the FBI is absurd & doesn't pass the smell test. Also, you've conveniently confused John Podesta who was the chair of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign with his broth Tony, who ran a Washington DC lobbying firm. John Podesta had his e-mail account hacked by the Russians & had nothing to do with Russia prior to this event. Trump only sent troops to Ukraine & imposed sanctions after Congress insisted upon it.
29
If Trump were to be a comedian, he would make Sasha Baron Cohen look like an amateur. Except that he is not a comedian. He is a criminal, supported economical by other criminals with no qualms about laundering money or using someone else's money. Trump and all his cadre of enablers belong (most likely) to prison.
Now, how can all the debt maneuvering come out now and not earlier?
The guy has been a con for decades, and the Justice system did not notice? Did it have to wait for him to become president to realize it? Something is so, so awefully wrong.
Democrats in Congress and Muller in the Justice Department must demonstrate if we are a country or a shell of a country.
9
Brace yourself.
We are going to hear caterwauling cries of SOCIALISM! from every Republican mouth from now till past the election of 2020. Most Americans couldn't define socialism to save their lives but they know they don't like it or they are not supposed to like it. Just like Obamacare, even if it saves your momma's life or that of your first born, you still hate it because, don't you realize?, it's evil to the core.
The best way to get people to vote the way you want them to is to scare them. Fear is a much stronger motivator than those old standbys of love and hope. Fear makes people jump off the couch and drive their broken down 2002 Chevy to the polls, pronto.
It does not matter what the Democrats propose, it is going to be called socialism. The fear machine at Fox News, in the belly of Rush Limbaugh and all over talk radio is standing by, ready to pounce.
The Democrats need some really good, even if specious, labels to throw at the Republicans. Something short and scary. Any suggestions?
6
@Doug Terry the sham of their tax break. They need to be singing to the hills how much more money people are paying this year on their tax bills. Not the huge savings promised by the GOP. And then talk about the corporate break that gave Amazon a refund.
1
@RD
The reduction in the deduction for paying state taxes was aimed directly at people who live in and often vote for Democrats because those states tend to be more prosperous and have higher local taxes. This was one of the more crassly political moves in Congress in a long time, a tax increase for Democrats. Meanwhile, the billions of dollars in farm subsidies that go into the more rural states continues along with Trump allocating additional billions as an apology for his trade war cutting sales of farm products to China.
1
Capitalism, socialism, it doesn't really matter. If you think that Trump is good for the country, good for your business or good enough to lend to, the "ism" you've embraced is nihilism.
217
@Rick Gage : exactly what I was thinking.
7
@Rick Gage. Succinctly put. Out of the nihilism (that feels so right to people going under and being left behind) inevitably comes the strong leader, a dictator with broad powers to protect people from the "chaos" of democracy (brought on by other people). Indeed, what does it matter if you approach dictatorship from the right or the left? They meet on the other side of the circle 180 degrees away from democracy.
4
@Rick Gage
Dare add "fascism"?
1
Yes DB’a actions to seek out and approve a loan as described in this story is abhorrent. But, DB is a German based bank headquartered in a country that is much closer to socialism than the US. So what is the point - - - - as the article makes perfectly clear, all the US based banks would not lend him any money. So which system works better - the capitalist system of the US or the socialist system if Germany.
Gail, thank you for proving US capitalism would not produce a DT.
1
@Brian
Responsible US banks? Where were you in 2008? US banks would give a mortgage or credit card to anyone drawing breath in the 2000's.
@Brian
Gail did not prove the US capitalism would not produce a DT. It did.
US bankers were saving their hides by not loaning him money that they knew he would not pay back. How did they know? They had already been burned by him.
@Brian Or Bear Stearns. Or Lehman Bros. Or AIG. Or Enron. Or Washington Mutual. Or Wachovia. Or IndyMac.
I got the sense that Russia and Russian money may have been behind Deutscha Bank's reckless loans to Trump from recent discussions.
5
We already have Socialism. It’s called Private Profits and Public
( Taxpayer ) Losses. And it works extremely well, for the Rich.
Millionaire, and Billionaire, Welfare. Period.
2020: VOTE, or just surrender.
14
I wish every American had the opportunity to experience living in a European social democracy. Daily life is easier, cleaner, more civil, culturally enriching, and just plain more enjoyable than anywhere I’ve lived in the US. Children are held as sacred promises to the future and given educational experiences not available in most American schools or communities. Life is celebrated frequently with community based events and family focused fairs. I miss it, that sense of community and shared responsibility. The overall sense I had was that their motto is each for the other for all, while where I now reside it’s more like everyone for themselves, sink or swim on your own and don’t touch my stuff or I’ll shoot you.
I’m all for social democracy, it’s a great way for tens of millions to live happily together.
43
Perhaps the Deutsche Bank loans needed a clause for an "unnatural disaster" named Donald Trump. They could have then lent money to themselves to recover from losing the money they lent to Trump. Now there's a business model.
7
@jrzyleftcoast
Sort of like government accounting. Just keep borrowing to pay your debt plus interest. Our government invented the accounting practices you find so offensive. Who is more qualified than Trump to run this government? He has the necessary experience to thrive under our accepted accounting practices.
It should be clear to all potential voters that Bernie Sanders is more of a Roosevelt New Dealer than a traditional socialist. He at no time ever advocated the elimination of the capitalist class, merely a more equitable distribution of the wealth created by society, which after all is generated by the society as a whole, not just the capitalist class. He sees the wealthy banks and large corporations as unfairly cornering too large a share of that wealth, with a 250% increase in profits since 1970, while the income of the lower 90% of us stagnated.
18
By any definition, Donald Trump IS a socialist. (1) Government ownership of property: he's expanding the military, confiscating personal property to build a southern wall, and propping up dying industries (e.g., coal). (2) Government control of the distribution of resources: (1) + he's enacting tariffs and tax breaks, reducing the flow of immigration (labor), supporting Medicare for 65+ and social security, pressuring the Fed to reduce rates, and borrowing from future generations to pay for Medicare and the military. (3) Any sort of Government interference in business and personal affairs: (1) + (2) + incessant bullying of businesses and individuals, pushing an Evangelical agenda, conducting a war on science, and promoting White Supremacism.
Yes, Trump has reduced regulations on energy extraction and banking, and he (really McConnell) has cut taxes on businesses and wealthy individuals. But he's just taking a page from the playbook of Mohammed bin Salman. He's creating the illusion of being one thing (a liberal reformer), but in reality being something entirely different (a brutal tyrant).
19
@Gort, I agree with you for the most part but in Trump's latest budget he does cut Social Security and Medicare. The biggest problem with Trump is that he proposes different things (I won't say policies because they aren't really policies.) on different days. It's like watching a tennis match.
3
@Gort
You have a warped version of socialist. But then again if it ain't lassiez faire capitalism by default it's socialism, communism or some other bad ism.
For reference see Scandinavian countries for better functioning economies and countries.
Trump is an incompetent plutocrat and a crook.
2
What gave us Trump was Hillary Clinton, one of the leading progressive, socialist-leaning, conspiracy-driven Democrats offered up to us as the answer. She clearly was not the answer. So much so that Trump was elected.
What our world needs now, besides love, is a centrist candidate who can work with both parties to get some resolutions and enactments....someone who realizes we can't keep spending more without cutting less essential needs.
Yes, there's an answer to what the Irish called "our troubles." It's not where we've been looking. Look inner instead of outer. Therein lies the answer.
4
@Lake Woebegoner
Clinton was center-right. She is the candidate you want. She will never inconvenience the rich and well connected; she identified with them too much for that.
As for working with both parties, it cannot be done when one of them will not give you the time of day. That party is the Republicans. Like their master, Trump, they think compromise means defeat. They want it all their way. If you want that to change, talk to them.
The Irish troubles did not end by looking inside. It ended with compromise by both parties, and it took a master negotiator with no skin in the game (looking at you Jared) to bring it about.
4
@Lake Woebegoner, your analysis is way off. I agree that Hillary was a flawed candidate but compared to Trump she was perfect! She was never a socialist but a very moderate and sometimes conservative Democrat who wasn't far enough left for Sanders voters to support. Her campaign also made many mistakes and Comey didn't help, even though I generally support Comey. He just made a big mistake with regard to Hillary Clinton. If she had been elected president I have no doubt that Republicans would have been imvestigating her nonstop but she would have maintained our alliances and kept our basic structure of government intact, unlike Trump who apparently just wants to burn the place down!
5
@Lake Woebegoner
Hillary Clinton did not give us Trump 40 years of gop propaganda, and republican winner take all strategies did.
1
The economics textbooks would say the US is a "mixed market economy." Like every other sophisticated economy in the developed world. The Republicans, of course, have no ideas, so they attack any ideas, say, to improve health care coverage, or lower the cost of health care, with scary sounding words.
31
Oddly, the distinction between Communism and Socialism is no longer made as it was in my junior-high civics class. The former was Karl Marx and the USSR, the latter is Norway etc. Karl Marx hated Socialism and the conservative Bismarck embraced it, largely without attribution, though. Seems like civics is no longer taught like music appreciation?
29
@KBD
Norway is not socialist. It is a very pro- capitalist country with free market economy with redistribution through taxation. So are Sweden and Denmark
1
@KBD, Norway and other Scandinavian counties are not socialist according to textbook definitions. They are capitalist countries with mixed markets. They are just as capitalistic as we are but with healthcare and benefits beneficial to their citizens. Denmark is considered to be more capitalistic than the US. They have a thriving entrepreneur class and thriving farms owned by the farmers.
2
Ahh, socialistic organizations the "patriotic gop" loves when they suit them: the military, NASA,NOAA, FEMA(for red states), FDA(when federal grant money leads to privatizing and profits), CDC,NIH, The Capitol Police(to keep guns out out of the Capitol buildings). Just to mame a few. Of course, after the financial meltdown, there was TARP and cash for the big to fail crowd but vitually nothing for homeowners. They tied Obama's hands on other projects that would have sped up the recovery and would have actually helped "Main Street."
The gop loves socialism when it is private gain,public pain.
48
When banks become as large as Deutsche Bank, they have the same level of morality and Donald Trump. None.
Regardless of who first said or wrote it, the phrase from the 1960s, "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor" is still true; maybe even more so today.
40
Gail, I love your stuff but you seem to be mixing up issues here, specifically socialism vs free market regulation.
This is too true: ".. the Republican definition seems to include everyplace that has universal health coverage." Also anything that has to do with healthcare, education, availability of critical pharmaceuticals, and environmental safety.
In my view these are areas that shouldn't be subject to free market capitalism. Its profit incentives distort or destroy real efforts to ensure citizens can avail themselves as a matter of constitutional principle. I'm willing to allow providers a cost-plus model that caps profits.
OTOH, Deutsche Bank's failure to abide by sound lending controls has nothing to do with socialism whatsoever. Yes, "the magic of the marketplace can get you into plenty of trouble..." And not only Deutsche Bank. The 2008 financial crisis was brought on by companies seeking quick profits regardless of traditional and practical guidelines on borrower qualifications and asset collateral requirements. The government had NO idea what the FinServ industry was doing with me and exotic instruments far removed from their underlying assets. Regulators didn't know how to assess risk, and companies insuring that risk had no clue either.
Let's return to the basics. Roads, schools, fire and police services provided and paid for by the government are not socialism. Not is healthcare. Don't let the GOP distract us from this fact.
24
Socialism is in the eye of the beholder. All large corporate interests are able to buy politicians who then bend the rules (or deregulate) in their favor. The defense industry, Big Pharma, big banks - they love their socialism. And they want to keep it - to the utter detriment of most of the rest of us.
30
Funny how so many Republicans love so many "socialist" things paid for by taxpayers -- their Medicare and Social Security, their highways and roads, their police, their libraries, fire departments, bridges, etc. War and prisons - two things they really, really like -- are paid for by our tax dollars too.
40
So far with my credit cards the banks tend to get a bit pushy if I am late but after reading about all this Deutsche Bank/Trump marriage, I sent an email to Deutsche Bank for large, Trump sized loan with my business plan...no answer yet.
Maybe I should have gone to Trump University?
29
The argument isn't over socialism in this country - it's over who gets it.
42
By socialism do you mean, the FED lying about inflation to subsidize, Wall Street with artificially low interest rates?
16
Is Trump the new iteration of Ponzi, whether it is his loan history or his political self-promotion [only I can fix it] or finding labels that somehow miraculously stick because they are repeated by him through the media so often?
14
Somebody - maybe George Bernard Shaw, maybe Churchill, maybe Ms. Collins - said communism/socialism is a great idea, but nobody has ever tried it. The socialism being touted by some Democratic presidential candidates suffers the same infirmity - it ain't socialism. Guaranteed health care, tighter business regulation, tighter environmental regulation are not socialism. Government ownership of business - the means of production, in Marx or Lenin's words (not to be confused with Groucho's or John Ono's words) - is socialism, and no Democrat - candidate, candidate-in-waiting, or any other - is proposing it.
So why do some Democratic candidates use the s-word that so inflames Republicans? I don't know, but it is not part of a winning political strategy; and it is crucial for America and the world to end the administration of the simpleton currently in the White House and at the head of the Republican party.
39
@Andy. I don't disagree, Andy. But I think the label "democratic socialism" is more of an effort to distinguish themselves from the corporate style ethos that has characterized the Democratic Party in recent years. Citizens United is partly to blame. It may be an unwise choice of words, but if you dig a bit deeper into what Bernie Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez stand for, I think you'd find that FDR wouldn't be ashamed to wear the label. I guess it remains to be seen if we've become too polarized to see beyond labels or if our electorate have become so dumbed-down that The Orange One can demonize sensible ideas with his rhetorical skills.
@Andy.
"So why do some Democratic candidates use the s-word that so inflames Republicans?"
Because 1. everything inflames them, 2. we aren't afraid of them any more, and 3. as they used to say in high school, if you have the name why not play the game. Own it; proudly.
Do you think any Democrat will ever have the approval of the Republicans? Why do you want it? Do pigs fly?
That way lies insanity.
One of many successful Republican misinformation campaigns has been to conflate governments and economies. Democracy is a form of government, as is a Monarchy. Capitalism is an economic model, as is socialism. Monarchies have given us Saudi Arabia, and most of the Middle-East countries. Democracies have given us Great Britain, the United States, and most of the so-called Western countries. Democracy has also given us Maduro's Venezuela and Putin's Russia. We can say that the Venezuelan model went drastically wrong, but that's what democracy can do. We can also say that the Russian model went drastically wrong. Republicans, especially under Trump, are leading us to a Russian style economy where oligarchs control everything and laws are applied unequally. It is a natural result of unfettered capitalism. But Democrats are not leading us to a Venezuelan style economy. They want to put the brakes on oligarchy, as we have done with the Robber Baron's of the past. They want to put some regulations on reckless banking institutions as we did after the Great Depression, and again after the Great Recession. I, for one, think that it would be a wise to take some ideas from the successful democracies of Europe and Scandinavia (the happiest countries) which have well-regulated capitalism. I certainly do not want us to become Russia any more that I want us to become Venezuela.
51
@syfredrick
Fredrick--
These are very good points. I hope you will repeat them as clearly as you did here in response to other columns as we get closer to the election!
6
@syfredrick We have heavier regulation on our capitalism than Scandinavian countries do. Just as the use of Socialism by Republicans is disingenuous so is the use of unregulated capitalism by Democrats.
@syfredrick This is so well said! We need to get this into the hands of Tom Perez and make sure ALL the Dems ANYWHERE can repeat these lines (even in their sleep). The bumper sticker: anything that helps people and makes sense is “socialism” if it hurts people and is stupid it’s “republican’tism”
A model that is workable in one arena is devastating in another. The free market model is pretty good for the stuff most of us buy as wedding gifts: the pricey Williams Sonoma food processor or Costco's way cheaper brand? You decide and let market forces prevail.
The free market is a cool partner with strong and smart federal oversight in other businesses. Oil extraction, natural gas fracking fit in here, and, for some strange reason, commercial airplane manufacturing also comes to mind.
When (1) competition for buyers and (2) the freedom to buy or not buy are factors, the free market is a vital player in a free society. Government should limit its interference to protecting our health and safety and perhaps a bit of anti-trust in the service of the genius of the free market.
Then there are goods and services that the free market is downright lousy at. Health care is one. The free market will never, ever assure that all of us are covered adequately, and, when we need the product, we do not have the choice to refuse. The profit motive makes universal coverage absurd. The free market left alone will never ever assure that dangerous drugs are not overused. The profit motive bends too sharply toward overuse.
The government should play a lead role in assuring that all of us get the health care we need. Otherwise, the free market is a cold blooded killer and the government an accomplice.
31
@Victor. Amen! You've hit the nail on the head. Thanks.
Wondering how all those farmers in the Midwest, most of whom voted Republican, like roosting in the middle of their lakes without boats but will come crying to the government for help and ever more subsidies (socialism anyone?). Wish someone would subsidize me because my Social Security check sure doesn't cover all the bills every month.
38
@Karen K
They will be waiting for the money from those blue, elitist, coastal states they love to disparage and vote against.
2
City after city, and local governments all over the United States, have had the taxpayers pony up tens and hundreds of millions of dollars to help build and remodel sports stadiums and arenas. Used by a tiny minority of the local citizens.
According to Forbes, 43 billionaires control 55 sports teams.The average value of an NFL franchise is $2.5 billion. A recent example of corporate welfare and socialism for billionaires is the new Mercedes-Benz football stadium in Atlanta Georgia. Arthur Blank, the co-founder of Home Depot, owns the Atlanta Falcons and decided to build a new stadium to keep up with the Dallas Cowboys owner.
The city of Atlanta kicked in $200 million for the project, but hidden clauses in the contract make the city of Atlanta responsible for a total of $700 million long-term. Arthur Blank is worth $5 billion according to Forbes. He pays no rent or property taxes on his new beautiful stadium. He shares no profits from his luxury boxes or jumbo screen advertising in the stadium.
And this goes on in every major city in America. Somehow all the billionaire owners talk the City Council‘s into spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars on something that they get no return for. Not to mention that the tickets are priced so high the average family can’t even attend a football game in their new stadium.
Politicians say not a word about this blatant corporate welfare, but work as hard as they can to take away the help from the poorest of Americans.
43
Trump's best skill is marketing Trump. That Chicago building is perfectly positioned. If I'm on Wabash Ave in the loop & look north, what I see at the seeming end of the street (it bends at the river) is a great big "T.R.U.M.P." Any view of the river from the Michigan Ave bridge looking west (or a drone flying in that area) as seen with the dyeing of the river for St. Paddy's Day clearly shows "T.R.U.M.P." - it is really the only name visible. Makes me think that the big guy fears he will be forgotten unless he plasters his name all over the place.
22
@Anne-Marie Hislop: How awful. Thanks for telling me. I've never been to Chicago. If I see that horrid name, over all, I don't want to visit. When my friend and I visited NYC (in 2015), as we walked along Fifth Ave, we crossed to the other side & didn't take any photos of the hideous tRump Tower...but we did "flip off the building" as we walked on, heading to Central Park.
4
@Cindi T
Chicago is a wonderful city with much to offer, I too just don't look. At least he doesn't come here...
@Anne-Marie Hislop I will be happy to forget him while he rots in prison.
We do have socialism in America. And it's not really about Medicare or Social Security because people do pay into those programs. what we really have had at least for the last 40 years is Socialism for the Rich. Think about borrowing and adding public debt so you can give tax cuts to already wealthy people - we are not talking about the people like me who played by the rules, went to school and worked hard and then when they got some higher wages had to pat a lot of taxes because of the AMT, no we are talking about very rich people whose taxes are lower than any one who works for a living. We are talking about the money we spend on foreign military operations that lowers foreign investment risk. So we could kind of protect you know large assets of rich , extremely rich people whose money was being moved and invested abroad. Yes we subsidize corporate America's business operations in countless ways while many of the executives get free cars on the company, and free air travel, free insurance, golf memberships, country club memberships all considered "business expenses" which are hidden and called something else but still deducted from revenue lowering taxes they pay. Corporate taxes by the way are over 50% lower than they were in 45 years ago, the difference pretty much amounts to our national debt every year except for when, like last year, we cut taxes even further for almost exclusively for very rich people. Supply side economic is socialism for the rich, time for change.
75
Rather than worrying about "Socialism" taking over, why not worry about the fact that free market economics, the assumed basis for capitalism, has already been taken over by a corporate oligarchy that has nearly erased business competition and consigned laborers, without whom business profits would be "0", to jobs with no financial security or opportunity for advancement. Given the choice between "Socialism", as Fox News chooses to define it, and our present decadent system, it's no surprise that many young people, who see their chances for a meaningful, economically secure future progressively diminishing, find socialism attractive.
56
When I went to Barcelona recently I went with my Bank of America credit card and not too much cash. I was a bit paranoid about maybe being trapped in a country with no funds if something went wrong with my card. Bank of America told me I could go into Deutsche Bank and they would help me take care of any problems, implying some sort of connection. I am wondering if in fact there is a connection and if so what the implications would be.
11
Since his speech in South America it is clear that one of Trump's campaign themes will be to keep socialism out of America. Democrats must mot permit Trump to again distort reality by controlling the terms of the debate. Socialism abounds in our hybrid society. We provide free public education, with few claiming the system must be changed because it represents socialism. It is it more important to educate our children or to provide medical care to keep them alive. Social security is, in large part, socialist. Medicare and Medicaid clearly represent socialism. Public transportation, police protection, paid fire departments, parks, and hundreds of other items provided by the government to all, whether or not they pay taxes, are socialistic. Trump, and most Republicans, use buzzwords and make outright lies to mislead uninformed voters. (Democrats want open borders). Democrats would be wise to avoid, or even deny, any use of the term "socialism" in their platforms while simultaneously highlighting the many examples of how our government provides services and benefits for all of its citizens regardless of whether those citizens contribute to government coffers.
53
@Disillusioned
Yep. It's so much easier to lie than to tell the truth.
Republicans lie. They plan a campaign that bears no reality to, well, reality. They tell lies often enough that they become the truth. An old Goeebels method that Trump learned from his father.
But it works. Especially with his favorite folks - the willfully ignorant. The lazy who don't want facts and the truth. That's boring. Especially if they have to think. No way.
These are Trump's base. Take his latest attacks on John McCain. The man is dead but Trump is still bashing him. He says he threw McCain a beautiful funeral an not a word of thanks. His supporters accept that and disapprove of McCain. THE MAN IS DEAD.
Maybe it's McCain's family he wants thanks from. But wait, Trump didn't plan and pay for the funeral so what's he talking about?
And so it goes.
Republicans put words in your mouth and then argue against them. Oldest lawyers trick in the book.
Democrats! Write the narrztive uourself and ignore the Republican spin. They lie and want you're time wasted refuting their lies so you sound confused and your message doesn't get out.
Don't take the bait!!!
1
Democrats need to step forward and DEFINE "democratic socialism."
The democratic socialism Democrats are advocating is more of what we already know, have and are very happy with. Social Security and Medicare are two well known examples of democratic socialism. Democrats want the costs of programs which benefit the people to be shared among the people.
Meanwhile, Republicans have been pushing their own socialism: Republican Debt Socialism. They passed a tax law which enriches the already rich, enables the wealthy to buy another yacht, a new jet, another home, while adding a trillion dollars EVERY year to the national debt--which we all owe.
Republicans transferred the wealthy's cost of living their lives of luxury to workaday Americans, the working class. That is Republican Debt Socialism. That is Republican socialism.
52
Trump isn’t the epitome of capitalism. Additionally, Nordic countries are just as capitalist as America, with less regulation. The fantasy that America is an unregulated capitalism is just as dangerous as the fantasy that safety nets are socialist. What we need is the balance that no one seems to be pushing for. We will fail without a strong capitalist economy that has a good safety net.
24
False equivalence I do not see democrats lobbying to kill capitalism.
@John
Trump:capitalism :: vikings:socialism
American capitalism: Profits are always private. Losses are always socialized.
249
@Ben Only big losses are socialized. Little fish are swallowed whole in this big pond.
2
Every-man-for-himself-socialism is the name of the capitalist game. Socializing all the costs of our way of living, while not accounting for any of it. We are all party to the tragedy of the commons, creating what Nathaniel Popkin describes as: "ours is an age of loss disguised as plenty".
On the bright side, at 2% growth we will be doubling our trouble in 35 years instead of 20 years at 3.5% growth.
18
I always figured all that European money being poured into hyper-expensive real estate deals was probably Russian laundry. Or Middle Eastern, or anyone's laundry - wealth pulled out of a nation and it's people and parked in our high rises.
But maybe it was clean, who knows?
Trump's biggest contribution to capitalism is the realization that some voters- maybe a dozen or so GOP guys across the nation - are having that maybe we do need laws, regulations, anti-corruption rules. That maybe profiteering is not the best thing for anyone except the profiteer.
Some people are beginning to see that letting the air industry monitor itself, and the banking system monitor its own securitized loans, and he oil and gas industry determine where it is a good idea to drill, the telecom industry decide how to distribute internet capacity - that all that might be a bad idea.
But hey. Socialism. A well exploited banana republic must be better than that!
25
Republicans fixate on socialism. U.S. workers do not own the means of production. Democrats should simply refer to a social safety net. Let the GOP wallow in its own bile.
Insatiably taking as much as we can for ourselves at the expense of others is not the answer. It never has been the answer.
The general idea of regulated capitalism united with a social safety net makes the most sense. Human beings are inherently competitive. Human beings also need regulation. And we need to take care of one another.
We can choose to come to our senses, living by the golden rule. Or we can let things completely fall apart, until we are absolutely forced to enact laws to moderate ourselves and to provide for the basic needs of our society, because without a legal framework we simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing.
We should hope for the former. But we need to see the world as it really is, not as we hope it is. I suspect our destiny lies irrevocably with the latter. We will see. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
And so it goes.
54
And conflating state capitalism with socialism just muddies conversation.
1
How much would it take for "both sides" to use some word other than "socialism" to describe government general welfare programs...to use "socialism" only when referring to government ownership of the means of production?
35
Yes I bought tobacco legally.
I bought alcohol underage.
I have never been a banker, Rob.
As you write:
Having retired from the NY banking world I am shocked at Deutsche Bank's decisions to ignore the "red flags" that prevented other banks from continuing to lend to Trump.
" The stories were common knowledge."
Perhaps you should have followed through and made a statement directly to the FBI.
The US banking system is bereft of any moral integrity and business acumen subsidised by selling risky loans for bonuses for dodgy loans.
Banks used to encourage wealth creation by astute lending.
Governments bailed out bankers in the Crash of 2008.
The interest margins are at historical lows, premiums for mug investors commensurate for high risk investments.
Central banks are not money trees or piggy banks.
The Australian Government Royal Commission into Banks has wide enquiry powers.
"The stories were common knowledge."
Governments would be interested in your testimony.
Contact your local FBI office.
I am a retired Australian Taxation Officer.
15
Storys are hearsay
Obviously corporations are people and people are corporations.
11
When our founding fathers were around we had private roads paid for by tolls. Then came the Republican Party and Abraham Lincoln who decided government was the one to built railroads and universities. And so government became the builder of things. I have a little farm and the first 10 pages when doing taxes online is checking off boxes for all the government programs I might use. Then there pages for the disaster bail out programs. Yet farmers always think they do it on their own. Boeing prospers on government support through the Export-Import Bank as I was reminded by how Ethiopian Airlines got its first Boeing. Republicans had their chance to get rid of Social Security in 1953 and did nothing. They had a chance to get rid of Medicare but did nothing. The question isn’t whether socialism but how far to expand it. If free high school was ok in 1890 then free community college is probably appropriate today. As to medicine Trump and the Republican congressmen get to use Walter Reed, which like the VA is pure socialism. The government finances all research. The only college in the country that doesn’t take government money is Hillsdale College.
77
@Richard
Tiny correction. The founding fathers gave us the US Post Office, it serves all of us. Also, the colonists shared the commons for grazing their livestock (socialism) and provided for widows, children, and people with disabilities collectively.
Records before the revolution are contained in the state houses of New England and reference how these needs were met by the community. Much of what the country as a whole believes about our existence as colonies and about our founding fathers is myth. Decision making was by democratic means, particularly in the northeast (town meetings are direct democracy), which was settled by yeoman farmers and tradesmen from England.
The south - created by investors - was set up on a feudal model with weak institutions and slaves instead of serfs, which made them different and not in a good way.
1
Deutsche Bank’s decisions to lend to Trump despite every red flag, made before Trump decided to run for president, were evidence of incompetence, bad judgment and poor risk management. But they are not illegal and have nothing to do with capitalism or socialism.
The whole “capitalism vs. socialism” debate is a complete red herring. Both are economic systems to determine how a nation’s resources are allocated. Neither is, by itself, a political system. The U.S. has a representative democracy. Socialist countries can have varying forms of government. Cuba and Venezuela have socialist economic systems, but given the lack of free and fair elections and the control their leaders have over the economic system, I would call them autocracies.
Yes, there are some on the Way Left who perhaps think pure socialism is a panacea. It never has been, anywhere in history. On the other hand, those on the Way Right who think pure, unfettered capitalism is the answer are also wrong. Currently, about 40% of the nation’s wealth is controlled by the top 1%. At some point, if people feel like capitalism in this country is an excuse for concentrating wealth in the uber wealthy, they will demand change.
Republicans and their rich donors claim any change would be “socialism”. That’s a bogus political talking point. The issue is about making the capitalist system evolve to give more opportunity for more of our people to actually be capitalists. The GOP better stop labeling and start listening.
54
If you adopt Republicans definition of Socialism, then Social Security is socialist, Medicare is socialist, Medicaid is socialist, Food Stamps are socialist.
There used to be a time when fire fighting was run according to Republican free market dogma. Private companies supplied the service to those who had paid their yearly dues. A sign was nailed to the facade on your building attesting to that. If you had not paid, your house would be left to burn. Only problem, left unattended the fire would sometimes spread and burn down the whole town. People eventually realized that capitalism can have catastrophic consequences. Fire fighting became a public good or socialism Republicans would say. So too policing, education, roads .... .
84
Modern life complicates the appropriateness of pats services but why do the government provided ones have to cost so much? Why can’t our police, fire and highway crews be staffed with conscripts paid a few dollars a month for essentials, housed in wood frame open barracks they built themselves. You know, the kind that were good enough for the Greatest Generation who won WWII? The left constantly bemoans the fact that we have large numbers of people incarcerated. Why can’t trash pickup by handled by prisoners in a work program?
1
@From Where I Sit,
Your proposals would make working people even worse off than they are now. Live in shacks they build themselves? Really? While the wealthy few continue to accumulate yachts and mansions.
You want government employees to be deprived of the full-time jobs they need in order to live. That would make it necessary for them to apply for government benefits, like so many othert underpaid workers. Is that your goal?
Your "solution" to the unjust mass incarceration of non-violent offenders is to deprive other workers of their jobs and use prisoners as slave laborers.
Society is sick enough already. You suggest making it sicker.
2
@rapatoul And though Republican voters use ALL of those social programs, Republicans want to cut funding or eliminate all of them.
1
In Trump and his real estate deals, Deutsche Bank saw the attraction of dynamic American growth, which had higher potential returns than the slow-moving EU situation. Trump was one of the weakest American players, but he was therefore more accessible to an outside banker. It was a marriage of convenience, not really a fascination with celebrity. German banking culture does not revel in celebrity, but shies from it. Deutsche Bank had to hold its nose to do business with Trump.
Deutsche Bank's own proposed merger with Commerzbank is a testament to the need to reduce costs, which are eating up both banks. A little creative desctruction can be a good thing. Trump knows that based on his earlier brushes with bankruptcy.
Bankruptcy, incidentally, is a decidedly American thing. In a socialist or communist state, if you get off the financial rails, your property is typically just confiscated unless you are well connected with government.
Ms. Collins is displaying her financial ignorance. Yes, Trump is obviously a loose player and a huge risk taker. What else is new?
2
@Dave Oedel - Couple of questions.
If Deutsche Bank, being a German bank, doesn't "revel in celebrity", but saw in Trump ( who is a celebrity and nothing more) an opportunity to rub elbows with "dynamic American growth", considering the current circumstances (outcome), who is it that is ignorant again?
Also, if in America, bankruptcies are absorbed by the government (taxpayer) and in socialist countries financial failures are confiscated by the state, is that not a distinction without a difference?
Please clarify.
18
@Skeexix
Deutsche Bank may have regretted getting into bed with Trump, but that just underscores the point that both parties were weak players in the American commercial real estate market. Incidentally, Trump is not just a celebrity. That's the predicate for this whole conversation. Trump is (was) a big borrower building big things on credit, at enormous risk. Everyone knew that when Deutsche Bank got into bed with him.
As to how bankruptcy works in the U.S. versus socialistic confiscation upon financial trouble, there is a big difference. The bankruptcy opportunity gives the bankrupt party the chance to climb out. Because that party can be best positioned to know the problems and solutions, bankruptcy can be, and often is, far more efficient than government just absorbing the losses. If you really dive into Trump's financial history, that is the truer story. He rescued himself through resort to his own knowledge of the problems that, yes, he got himself into. That opportunity was provided to him by bankruptcy law. It is a good system.
3
@Dave Oedel. Six bankruptcies is five too many for any "mogul." Trump has "rescued himself" at the semi-public trough over and over again, and let's not forget who really is left holding the bag when a business declares bankruptcy - creditors, contractors and employees. DT never rescued himself - he just used the system to make the money he wanted and then he bailed.
18
Having retired from the NY banking world I am shocked at Deutsche Bank's decisions to ignore the "red flags" that prevented other banks from continuing to lend to Trump. The stories were common knowledge. Even after he sued them on the personal guarantee clause they made new loans. Why? Russian Guarantees?
Enquiring minds - and the New York Southern District - want to know.
189
@Rob-Hazah! You may have nailed it!!
2
It is necessary to ponder why Deutsche Bank was also instrumental in lending large amounts to Greece, that it did not repay. Greece is still under surveillance from the German government and the EU for rescue from default. This austerity hurt millions of Greeks. Maybe corruption is involved in the lending process.
29
No problem. The German government bailed out DeutschBank by transferring the loan from the Bank to the German tax payer. All European governments did the same with their respective banks, all the while loudly proclaiming how generous Europe was with Grece when all they were doing was getting their own banks off the hook for the irresponsible loans they had made to Greece. Of course, these had allowed Greece to buy German submarines, subways, French helicopters, .... and allowed Greek politicians to receive giant kickbacks.
@Andre Seleanu
@Andre Seleanu
Maybe Deutsche Bank is laundering dirty money.
How can someone who continually files for bankruptcy and defaults on loans, run a country? All of these scandalous actions should be investigated more. Think of him as Clinton if you need the motivation to do that. Why do Republicans always get a pass on shady behavior?
96
The true question is “how can an individual as crooked and incompetent as Trump attract followers and even get elected to the Presidency of the United States? ANS: ignorance and the Electoral College.
3
Because when part of your electorate is mostly concerned with race, ethics is not top on their list. @getGar
1
There was a time, when DT's holdings were so in debt, and he owed the banks so much money, that they were ready to take it all. That type of situation existed about the same time in the those who owned farm land in Minnesota, where the land wouldn't of gotten much, so the banks wrote down the debt, and sold it to whoever would buy. That is what was called capitalism, which was really ignorance, over extension of credit, and holding on to see another day, and both DT, and the farmers did. Now, however, it is looking like both might be heading towards more difficult times, financially speaking, more bankruptcies, and to see the two intertwined like a bad macramé plant holder, that has seen its better day, says that things might make the farmers turn on DT. Did the farmers really get someone who could help them sell their products, or are both the world, and DT, in a tug of war for the sake of a tug of war, while both go down in a big fireworks show that burns itself out, and it is over?
16
What, the first story about Deutsche Bank didn't get any traction so you needed to puff it up a bit in the Opinion pages? It is not news that Deutsche Bank has done business with some shady characters over the years and has allegedly laundered money for Russian oligarchs. Lending Trump money when he was in shaky financial straits may not have been wise, but hardly criminal or illegal.
For every borrower who has stiffed a bank there are millions more hard-working, honest businessmen who pay their loans back on time, with interest. One Donald Trump is no reason to abandon capitalism.
6
HEJ,
There are myriad reasons to abandon capitalism, and each one contributes to the overall morass that is an economic system based not on human good, but personal and institutional greed.
Trump's experience is part of a larger whole.
14
@HEJ I think capitalism needs to be moderated, abandoned in its current dangerous form, and I think that's what most of the commenters here are saying.
@HEJ
But it is one to abandon Trump, and the likes of him who make money by taking advantage of honest people, by lobbyng for unfair advantgs, and are driven by obscene greed
It would be interesting to see a debate between two experts on bankruptcy- Donald Trump, who used it as a standard business practice and Elizabeth Warren, who wrote the book on it.
53
Why do the poor in Trump country fear socialism? It's just a word that points to an economic system that values the totality of human existence. A system that spreads wealth rather than running around serving the rich.
80
@Thomas
Under socialism, taxation is so high that Scandinavian couples generally don't have the money to have children.
Thus, Scandinavia ''enjoys'' 10% to 15% Muslim and other 3rd-world extraction immigrants, sex crimes are up,and what made those places special is declining.
Socialism today is an intelligence test because only the stupid and the power-obsessed call for it. Look at NYC's economic standing and it's fast-approaching crisis/bankruptcy.
@Thomas
Probably because they remember all those stories about life in a workers’ paradise.
@Thomas
They fear socialism, because that leads to Communism. You now, the system that the Russians had. But now don't. So we like them now and its OK to be like them. Hence, we support trump and his fascism.
1
I like to see a little less socialism for companies ( subsidies, tax breaks, bail outs, competition crunching laws etc) and
a little more socialism for people (free health care some free college education, more social security).
The first would be good for competitive capitalism, the second would be good for people, innovation and raise more taxes.
139
Wow.
I know it's been said before, but no one would find a novel or TV Show plausible with this stuff.
I wonder if there was any link between Pres. Trump being able to convince Justice Kennedy to resign and the latter's son's employ at D.B. and involvement with Trump's loans.
96
@gc Reply to gc from Ohio: There are so many awful things that happen every day that we forget sometimes to remember : Trump did convince Justice Kennedy to resign (oh my oh my son get job at D.B.) and we get Kavanaugh. Not really investigated by FBI. One of the worst things to have happened. Life appointment. Also he cried. Really?????
3
I live in Sweden and we have pretty much free medicare. And pretty much nobody lives in poverty here. We also strive for a green change, and still, pretty much NOBODY lives in poverty here.
So, based on reality, the Trump organization is wrong.
100
@Daniel
I've seen migrants living in poverty in Sweden. It's not all a bed of roses. Much easier for a small populated state with natural resources and super high taxes to fund their social programs.
6
@Chang. But we already have high levels of “socialism” here in the USA: Corporate welfare and welfare as well as legal privilege for the affluent. Also, poverty is much more prevalent in the US than it is in any modern western society. The Scandinavian counties are not socialist, they are market based with strict rules that protect consumers and the overall community from bad actors and with a strong social safety net. Socialism is where the government takes over the means of production and distribution, that not the case here at all.
54
Yes, @Chang, in Sweden, the very wealthy voluntarily shoulder a high tax burden to pay for an excellent social safety net and human development. They see it as a worthy investment.
41
That net worth figure--already lower than Mr. Trump's hype--does not reflect what are almost certainly enormous tax liabilities.
The one thing Michael Cohen told the Oversight Committee that we can be sure is true: Mr. Trump wanted to prevent widespread, audit-type attention focused on his tax returns.
Financial reporters are probably already working on a rough ball estimate to run April 15, but his parents' estate penalties and tax; the ripple effect of the Trump Foundation's nullification; and who know what else might approach the limits of that lower net worth estimate.
It's hard to comprehend the ignorant arrogance on the part of Mr. Trump and his family--not just in the tax situation they didn't want closely scrutinized, but to assume that situation would continue into the presidency.
23
@Grennan
You are living in a fantasy world. There are going to be no penalties assessed on his parent's estate, the Trump Foundation is closed and its assets of less than $2 million are being donated to other charities.
Michael Cohen is a felon, convicted of tax evasion and money laundering as well as perjury.
Granted, Democrat prosecutors are digging around in history on a witch hunt, now that they are aware Mueller hasn't found any criminal or impeachable offenses. [Reeks of desperation] They are also living in your dream world, where one makes up fantacies where no facts exist.
Looks like Deutsche Bank is worse at business than Trump. The end.
As for socialism - the Republicans will scare the bejesus out of their base with it. Just as they did with the Affordable Care Act, by calling it the dreaded "Obamacare". Socialism is the new bogeyman coming to steal your soul in the night according to them. Never mind that so many of their supporter are receiving - gasp there's that word - Social Security and Medicare, both rooted in socialism. "Green" will also be used with derision by the Republicans to taunt liberals and progressives who actually believe climate change is real, and to rally their supporters against anything smacking of science. Sigh.
This is going to be a long two years. I only hope the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the oncoming train.
54
@Diana
Obama called it Obamacare. Republicans adopted Obama's preferred name for it. Partially, that was to counter the false narrative of Democrats that it was based on Republican suggestions. Had the law not been so profoundly defective, you would be proud to call it Obamacare instead of feeling the term is dreaded.
As part of enacting Obamacare, Democrats defunded Medicare to the tune of $0.8 trillion.
There are many people who think climate change issues should be addressed. We have yet to see anything in the green agenda except money.
For you, it is going to be a tough slog to 2024.
3
@ebmem
You've got your story wrong, but people often choose the story that matches their preferences, without much attention to facts.
Very little digging would remind that President Obama was interested in results, not in having his name on it.
"Keep in mind I’m not the one who named it Obamacare. [Republicans] were the ones who named it Obamacare because what they wanted to do is personalize this and feed on antipathy toward me in their party, as an organizing tool — as politics.’"
--President Obama
26
@Ebmem,
Nice try at revisonism.
The problem is that almost all of us have lived through the events you describe, and know that you are misrepresenting them.
"Obamacare" was the derogatory term Republicans applied to the ACA, in order to smear it and associate its problems with Obama.
The ACA model was what was originally proposed by the Heritage Foundation, adopted separaretly in Massachusetts, and touted almost verbatim by John McCain during his election campaign.
Medicare was never "defunded." I'm surprised that at this late date anyone would repeat a Republicn lie that has long been debunked. A proposed increase in government subsidies for supplemental insurance that was ineffective, overpriced, and unnecessary was tabled.
At the same time the Republicans fabricated that lie with their right hand, their left hand was advocating for actual cuts in Medicare itself. Anyone who could not see the hypocrisy was willfully blind.
The "green agenda" is full of proposals to cut carbon emissions and adopt clean energy sourcs in order to reduce manmade global warming. I have no idea what you mean by referring to it as being about nothing but money.
17
By subsiding the top ten percent and Wall Street, the US already has become socialistic, a welfare state for the wealthy. A democracy is where a majority of the people rule while there are protections provided for the minorities. In other words, it is not for the majority of money to lord over the majority of people. ** The Robert's Supreme Court sealed the case for the wealthy to rule, via campaign contributions. The Republicans have steadily reduced rights for the majority and continue to push the country further toward an oligarchy.
35
If 'capitalism' would be renamed to 'individualism' maybe 'socialism' would not be such a bad word anymore.
It is a bit funny, the fear of socialism among those who would have the most to win with it. Those who need affordable healthcare, those who want their children to have the same chance as anyone to get a good education, those who want more wealth equality and equality in general.
It is a bit absurd that those who cannot afford healthcare, cannot send their kids to college and have no pension to look forward to are often those who fear socialism the most.
It becomes even more strange when we think about the word 'social'. Being social, society, social media etcetera does not sound so scary because... well, we are social creatures. Social creatures that are scared to death of socialism.
Socialism can go too far, but capitalism has no soul, no interest in the living, no interest in anything. And it shouldn't have because it is an economic model, not a political system.
Indoctrination and willful ignorance. Right hand, right decision, being right. Many have that quirk in their language, that the word for the position right is also the word for something being just right. The word for left in Italian is 'sinistra'. Sinister. Small things, but with time and persistence the people that don't want to share have made us believe that we don't want to share either. We eat crumbs under the table happily. If we would stand up and see what's up there, we would like to share.
47
@Truthseeker
Obamacare and other Democratic schemes have nothing to do with healthcare, they proposed universal financing of big medicine via insurance. It gave trillions to big medicine and threw crumbs to the people.
Hospitals serving high proportions of Medicaid patients were closed, more in expansion states than non expansion states. Democrats were interested in getting more money and 1/6th of the economy in the hands of their cronies than helping people. That is socialism.
2
@ebmem
The only way Obama could provide insurance to 22M who did not have access, due to lack of means, was to enact the ACA. The Plan was based on Romney's program in Massachusetts. He got what he could, given the power of the insurance industry which was more concerned about premiums lost than about insuring those without it. I worked in benefits in CT for 22 yrs, save your sympathy towards insurers. We put our insurance out to bid every year. Brokers made large commissions on the sale of their product. Claims managers looked for ways to deny claims; if you were a large enough client, you could argue for coverage they wanted to deny. Insurance is a big industry with investors who want to receive dividends. We need to have a public option for those who need affordable insurance. Medicare works fine; that is a model to follow.
8
Brilliant analysis. This comment has helped clarify the question I have about why so many people who benefit from social benefits react so strongly against the very term socialism. Thank you!
2
"The World Happiness Report" was released today and the countries listed in the top ten were countries Mike Pence says are "impoverished countries." Such countries cannot be impoverished and very, very happy at the same time. It makes no sense, just like everything else coming out of the Trump administration and his Congressional lackeys.
20 happiest countries on earth:
1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Norway
4. Iceland
5. Netherlands
6. Switzerland
7. Sweden
8. New Zealand
9. Canada
10. Austria
11. Australia
12. Costa Rica
13. Israel
14. Luxembourg
15. United Kingdom
16. Ireland
17. Germany
18. Belgium
19. United States
20. Czech Republic
The top ten have all the things Republicans say are just awful: universal health care, excellent educational opportunities regardless of income status, paid family leave, a living wage, paid vacation time, a work-life balance, excellent infrastructure, workers rights and environmental safeguards.
If that's socialism, sign me up for it. I want it, too.
Republicans hate it because there's no corporate welfare or enormous transfers of wealth to the very, very rich, the only "social welfare programs" that Republicans embrace.
378
@Mary Scott Please note that Canada is the first country on the list with a population of more than 10 million (it's over 35 million). By rough estimate, we are making more people happy than the first eight countries combined.
47
@The Dog
It is worth noting that there is a correlation between happiness and population. It looks as if it is statistically significant.
11
@Mary Scott What few Americans realize is that private enterprise can exist side by side in a socialist system. My relatives in Sweden can choose to go to private non-profit hospitals or clinics along with the state run clinics. My cousin is a dentist in private practice. One of my good friends had her 2 babies in a private hospital run by a Lutheran Deaconess group. Another cousin had a severe heart attack in a Gothenberg restaurant and was in surgery within 2 hours in the largest hospital in the city. They complain about the taxes, hut - who doesn't complain about taxes?The myths about socialism is a fear tactic couched in language that makes it sound like Communism.
49
The more that Trump and his “business associates” are exposed for what they really are, the more this explains why so much corruption persists within our capitalist system. The masses either don’t care, or they are unable to do anything to stop it.
It’s pretty obvious that Trump has been committing all kinds of crimes for decades, but he has never been held to account, and he probably never will. He’s far from the only one. Most of building industry operates just like Trump. Most of the industry is paying off politicians and mobsters, and many are being funded by loans from investors that were provided based on entirely false and corrupt premises; this is just how the system works. The laws only really exist in effect for the masses.
Trump is nothing more than a tiny minnow in the bigger picture of real estate corruption. This issue is so big, it likely won’t ever be allowed to get fully exposed. For example, there is so much laundered money that has helped to inflate the New York real estate market, that full exposure of this would risk collapsing the whole market. So much of the market is over valued because it was purchased with illegal money coming from places like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. The rich couldn’t handle this truth, and the corrupt officials and politicians are happy to play their part in this vicious cycle of capitalist fueled corruption.
43
@G
We spend so much on blatant corruption that it is a major industry. And an economy that suddenly loses a major industry is likely to suffer a recession or even a collapse. So we have to be careful about how quickly and complely we act against it, and this easily turns into not doing much at all, or enough to make a difference.
7
@sdavidc9
CT got rid of tolls and it didn't collapse; the tolls were put into the General Fund and never used for road maintenance. Those tolls caused the Fed Govt to refuse highway funds to CT. The tolls ended, taxes went up and we moved on. The parking meter scandal in NYC was investigated and reforms put in place; NYC did not collapse. FDR put Social Security in place, and millions benefited. Truman put Medicare in place, and millions benefitted. The Industrial Revolution brought child labor and other problems; we used legislation to rectify those problems, and we have not collapsed. Corruption is a factor in human behavior; we use laws and regulations to mitigate corruption. If we lose an industry because it won't comply with basic public safety laws, we have lost a corrupt industry.
19
@G
If you examine corruption in NYC, it is related to city and state government far more than the federal government. The reason the subway system is crumbling has nothing to do with the federal government or Republicans.
With tens of thousands of daily commuters paying fares, there is plenty of money sloshing around to maintain, improve and expand it. Why doesn't it happen?
The contractors collude with each other and the government to rig the bidding process to increase costs. The unions, both the public transit and the private sector construction unions create work rules that impair productivity but increase the number of idle workers required.
The contractors/unions/government employees collude to pay invoices for phantom [no show] workers, who kick back to the unions and contractors and contract managers.
Local activists obstruct plans, demanding parks or payments to the activists to stop protesting.
Rather than investigate De Blasio, construction fraud and kickbacks, NY prosecutors are exploring Trump information that is decades old where there is zero probability of recovering any money and certainly not enough to pay for the cost of the witch hunt. Had Hillary been elected, mass transit in NYC would still be a mess.
Fraud is not an element of a capitalist economy, which is characterized by property rights and the rule of law.
New York reclaimed first place as the most corrupt State from Louisiana.
1
Nothing Democrats want to do is Socialism. Not even the ones who call themselves Socialists. What they are is Social Democrats, not Socialists.
Socialism means the government owns the means of production and everyone is either employed by the government...or unemployed. It means a "planned economy", which even under the wisest and most benign leaders seems to go awry.
Socialism does not any way, shape or form relate to social welfare programs, like infrastructure, the TVA, and Head Start.
Democrats are no more Socialists than the self-described "Conservatives" are Conservatives. They are radical reactionaries supporting radical reactionary atavist policies that every time they are tried impoverishes more of the people they are trying to sell on it.
It's not that Democrats want Government to own the corporations and the billionaires, it's that they want the corporations and billionaires to STOP owning the Government and return ownership to the people.
110
@Dadof2 I agree that socialism and social welfare programs are entirely different things. Yours is the first correct definition of socialism I read in the NYT. However, nobody forces Sanders to call himself a “democratic socialist”. Considering the fact that he praised the USSR, I strongly suspect that his ultimate vision is indeed of a planned economy with the givernment’s ownership of the means of production. Incidentally, this was the vision articulated on the website of the Democratic Socialists of America the last time I checked.
4
@Mor
Both of you are incorrect. Socialism is the form of government where the private ownership of the means of production is still permitted, but the government and its central planners control the businesses.
It has nothing to do with safety net spending. A capitalist democracy can collect taxes and distribute them to those in need.
If the elected governments want to discourage the use of fossil fuels, they can pass a law banning them or tax them to discourage their use.
In a central planned socialist government, nameless, unaccountable bureaucrats sit around and pick winners and losers devise regulations without the legislature having authorized the regulations.
The Clean Power Plan is a good example. Under the Clean Air Act, if the EPA identifies a pollutant to be regulated, it identifies all of the point sources of that pollutant and regulates them. What the CPP did was tell the states that had coal fired electricity generators that they had to reduce their CO2 production by an amount that effectively caused them to shut down. Meanwhile, they said to states that had natural gas surge generators that they didn't even have to count their CO2 emissions, even for those generators that were producing more CO2 than the coal plants.
If Obama wanted to kill the coal industry, he needed to get Congress to ban coal burning. It is socialism to central plan a business into destruction while allowing a favored crony to act with impunity.
1
It’s not socialism. It’s social investment. Instead of corporate bailouts. These are our tax dollars. We should view them as an investment, and demand a quality return.
11
I still want to know if that 2bn was ever paid back and who back-stopped it. Or, who came through to for Trump Organization to pay that money owed.
When do we get answers?!
26
No where in this article does Gail explain anything about socialism. Also, I wish people would stop bringing up Sweden or other Nordic countries as socialist. They are not. These countries don’t even have a minimum wage. If you want a cradle to grave social safety net then be prepared to tax everybody and not just the one percent.
5
@Art Hudson
The people who crafted the welfare states of those countries called themselves Socialists. And pretty much every attempt to get us closer to them leads to Republican cries of "socialism".
13
@Art Hudson As opposed to what, taxing everyone except the one percent. We have cradle to grave safety nets but only for the one percent. I with the right wing would stop brining up Venezuela every time someone suggests a policy that actually benefits Americans other than the one percent. As for not explaining anything about socialism, maybe level that criticism against those people who go around screaming socialism like its the equivalent of their hair on fire every time a democrat tries to bring up policies that benefit the average American citizen. And just to be clear, WE ARE ALREADY TAXED. Its not whether we are taxed but rather what is done with the money. Get it?
28
Sweden has one of the lowest corporate taxes in the world. These are thriving capitalist economies. But they choose to invest their tax dollars in their own people.
12
After the recession beginning in 2008, no one shows again trust bankers' judgment and prudence at face value.
13
Socialism vs. capitalism is no contest when the ideology in play is win at all costs. Exploiting the inherent weaknesses in both systems is clearly Trump’s game. Not too dissimilar from the divide and conquer method deployed by Putin and his ilk throughout history, we’ve been duped by the oldest of cons.
23
What Deutsche Bank and Trump did were against the spirit of capitalism. Banks must be careful when they use money of their depositors and investors. The way that Deutsche Bank lent money to Trump, risked not only the bank but also the system of capitalism.
23
@Matsuda, yes, banks must be careful, but clearly, they are not. Unchecked capitalism acts like a sociopath.
@Matsuda Gee, what a shame.
I saw that building recently and your picture doesn't do it justice. Alongside the area's historic buildings, it's not a great fit nor terribly attractive, but as modern architecture goes, the only thing lacking is the name Trump should have been much larger.
1
Trump U, Trump Airlines, Trump Casino, Trump Steaks, Trump Water . . . . Successes all!
Why would Americans want their government to make investments in community wide programs for the good of all of society when great entrepreneurs like DJT can produce the Promised Land — a land flowing with milk and honey — through the wonder of the free market system?
Have we become tired of winning? Has Deutsche Bank?
51
You forgot the Carrier heating and cooling manufacturing plant in Indianapolis. Trump said he persuaded management not to move those jobs to a plant in Mexico. He declared victory and then Carrier moved the jobs to Mexico. But, Mexico will pay for the wall. So much winning.
62
@WestHartfordguy Don't forget Trump Vodka. How on earth can a guy with so many Russian friends make a lousy bottle of vodka?
1
So am I missing that this bank launders money for Russian oligarchs? Is this true? And then they socialize that money to the rich and famous and are even are willing to take massive losses?
Either way this bank is an amazing tool at redistributing massive amounts of unearned wealth to Trump family.
46
@Mathias: it is hardly JUST the Trump family. Deutsche bank has been CAUGHT, redhanded, doing illegal stuff for YEARS and only gotten puny fines and allowed to continue to do business.
1
I know there are lots of definitions of "socialists". But every time Trump tries to coerce some business into doing something (like the GM Ohio plant), I wonder if the "free market" people really believe in the free market. It seems like the ultimate in socialism to think that our President (not a very good businessman in his own territory), can tell companies where to put their production capacity. It seems like they only believe in "capitalism" when it's rigged in their favor.
59
Socialism is ok for companies, bankers and shareholders but not for the citizens. That will just make us lazy.
@Lynn Smith-Lovin
You nailed it, Lynn. Trump apparently doesn't grasp that free market forces are the driver of trade deficits and the shifting of wealth to more efficient producers. So he blames it all on the Chinese, the Mexicans, and the immigrants. Demagogy is an easy sell to the uninformed.
Could we please have a refresher course on the difference between social democrats and socialists. The former describes the vast majority of Americans, whether they realize it or not, while the latter does not. If one believes that people should have the right to healthcare, education, and retirement security but also that we must encourage creative entrepreneurialism and private ownership then one is not a socialist but a social democrat. It is extremely annoying that so called liberal media continues to mis-portray social democrats as socialists. It is almost as though they are trying to sabotage what should rightly be a surge of populism against the depredations of uncontrolled and unregulated capital accumulation.
285
@Roger C, thank you for pointing this out. It cannot be repeated too many times. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. Often by outright expropriation. BTW, there was another report of a survey out today. People in the European Social Democracies are the happiest in the world.
101
@Roger C Socialism is a class of ideologies that the public sector should ultimately own the means of production. Democratic Socialists want to get to that goal by democratic means rather than revolution, and to have the resulting public owned economy continue to be run by elected officials rather than a dictator or junta. Social Democrats are ready to use public interventions and programs freely to achieved social goods, whenever market systems disappoint, but have no ideology driven urgency to either maximize public ownership or hang onto market systems for their own sake. Social Liberals ( called Modern Liberals in the US to distinguish them from those who merely want to liberalize social matters such as gay marriage) are much like Social Democrats but have more of a reluctance to shed market systems permanently in response to temporary failures, preferring to aim public policy to leverage market dynamics. To the right of Social Liberals are those who believe in the superior virtue of market systems irrespective of the apparent collective good. Let's call them capitalists. Capitalism and Socialism are the purest forms of ideologies. Markets and public programs are the kinds of dynamics they promote.
2
@Roger C I can appreciate the distinction. However, bernie sanders didn't say he was a democratic socialist. He said he was not a Democrat, he was a socialist.
Now, to again run for president, he has even joined the party after being persuaded that running on the Democratic ticket while being an Independent in Congress would not get him the nomination. Bet you he goes back to being an Independent when Democrats turn him down...again.
1
We have almost 40 years of hard evidence showing that unbridled capitalism, a.k.a. "trickle down" economics - has failed the majority of Americans.
On the other hand there are decades of hard evidence showing that Nordic "socialism" works for the majority.
But one thing is certain: no matter what form of economic system a country follows, if the leaders and power brokers use it to their own ends, no system will work.
It's time we tried something new: return to the OLD formula used from the New Deal until Reagan. High marginal tax rates to discourage hording of fortunes and encourage investment in things that create jobs and improve the well being of the country. Strong unions - but this time under government oversight to prevent the abuses and fraud that undermined them. Breaking up the virtual monopolies, and "too big to fail" corporations.
To that old formula we can add the implementing of transaction taxes on all trades made. Kick start a job and wage renewal by launching the long promised Infrastructure Initiative. Medicare For All. Free college or trade school. create tax breaks and low interest loans for renewable energy companies to build operations in economically depressed areas, especially in areas that now support coal mining and oil/gas drilling.
And since we're not talking about the government taking over ownership of any businesses, there will be no socialism! Or, we could just keep doing the same old thing.
114
Since we are envisioning changes the government can make to the way our nation works (sounds terrible doesn't it?) why not add the following:
Charge $0.02 for every e-mail sent by everyone with the receipts used to fund rural broadband service. I know that our advertisers would relish the notion of only delivering their messages to those who want to receive them.
Charge $0.02 for every phone call and text and use the receipts to fund public education. Marketers, campaign organizations, grandmothers, etc. would contribute alike.
Charge $0.05 for every Facebook, Twitter posting … someone needs to pay for the energy used by the server farms needed to store all this data and after these changes, Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. will not be profitable enough to cover the costs.
Sigh … wouldn't it be wonderful?
15
@mce
Sigh. The problem with the federal government coming up with schemes to collect from some and give to others, is that it is already out of date by the time it becomes effective.
Back ten years ago when the Democrats launched their $0.8 trillion stimulus program that didn't work there were several rural broadband grants made. A total of $2.5 billion resulted in less than 200,000 rural households and business getting broadband. That is $25,000 per household. For $1,000, they could have given a satellite dish to each household. It would be even cheaper today. And you wouldn't have to subsidize wealthy households, they pay their own way.
Broadband is cost effective in densely populated urban environments where most people do not have a line-of-sight location for a satellite dish, and where a cable of one mile can serve many users. The reasonableness changes when it takes ten miles of cable to serve a single customer.
1
@Ebmam,
How convenient for you to ignore the fact that fully 40% of the stimulus was tax breaks for the wealthy insisted upon by the Republicans.
And that what was left of the stimulus was woefully inadequate to actually kickstart the economy.
As for that, you ignore the purpose of the stimulus. It was not to give out gifts, but to ... well, stimulate, by increasing hiring to put more money in the hands of consumers, thus increasing spending and starting a cycle of more production, more hiring, and more spending, etc.
In the amount of time it existed and the amount of money it spent, it was never enough to accomplish those goals. Paul Krugman pointed this out at the time and was proved right.
3
Can I make a suggestion to American pundits, please stop talking about socialism and capitalism like it is a zero sum game.
It is not.
There is no denying private business (capitalism) is the major source of employment in any democratic country. Even in undemocratic countries.
In addition, the community, aka a government representing the people, can be a conduit for organising the payment, and sometimes the provision, of essential services like health care, when the market is not acting efficiently (socialism).
Socialism, used appropriately, may in fact be the ultimate rising tide that lifts more boats, hence creating more widespread consumer power and enhancing capitalism.
These ideas are complementary. Not zero sum.
320
@EC
To be clearer, socialism, certainly when it pertaining to HEALTHCARE, is the ultimate rising tide that lifts more boats, creating more consumer power and enhancing capitalism.
84
@ECFair comment, though I didn't take the article that way (though I can see how one could). It appears to be a response to the line in the sand that's been drawn by one side saying "America is not a socialist country, and never will be . . . ". We already have socialism in the form of Social Security and Medicare for senior citizens, though I guess we should acknowledge that Medicare is in the sites for elimination by some Republicans, and certainly the leadership.
28
@EC Not to mention that the Community, aka a government, will do jobs private business won't because it doesn't pencil out. And oh, btw, create jobs in the process (who is the largest employer in the country?).
19
And who was in charge of the real estate division of Deutsche Bank from 1997 to 2009? Justin Kennedy, the son of Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy. Anthony Kennedy conveniently retired in the summer of 2018 to "spend more time with his family" despite his family saying that they had no objection to him continuing on the bench. This retirement paved the way for the nomination of conservative Brett Kavanaugh, a much younger man. What favors or threats were dangled in front of Anthony Kennedy to convince him to retire?
700
@Walter Exactly! And who paid off Kavanaugh's mortgage, $200K in credit card bills, and his country club bill? Hmmm....
35
@Walter-Good question. But keep eyes on the Supremes if the Gamble case gets heard.
https://www.npr.org/2018/12/06/673449144/this-supreme-court-case-could-impact-the-mueller-probe-and-boost-trumps-pardon-power
12
@Walter - Therein lies a great story, and some journalist will win the Pulitzer when she uncovers it. Likely in 2021, after the new Democratic President is sworn in.
32
Republicans don't mind handouts as long as they are the ones getting them.
Food stamps for the poor or medical care for all citizens are loathed by Republicans. That's socialism. But they are just fine with tax cuts for the rich and the corporations. That's capitalism.
As for Prof. Anat Admati's statement that “a corporation the size and complexity of Deutsche Bank is so poorly governed,” she should know that Deutsche Bank is not alone. Enron, Lehman Brothers and many others were in the same boat, and they all sank. The only thing surprising is that Deutsche Bank has not sunk. At least not yet.
162
@RK
Republicans have no objection for food stamps for the poor or medical care for the poor, elderly and disabled.
Food stamps and Medicare for able bodied childless adults who are unwilling to spend 20 hours per week training, seeking employment, working or volunteering we do protest. What is surprising that anyone would have an objection to people improving their lot in life.
1
@ebmem
Not many object to people improving their lot in life. In fact, probably the opposite is true.
As for people getting assistance without having to work, that is not necessarily the case. About half the people who get food stamp assistance are working families. You can look at the stats here:
https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-closer-look-at-who-benefits-from-snap-state-by-state-fact-sheets#Alabama
7
@Ebmam,
In what universe do you live?
Republicans hae been chipping away at social programs for decades.
They would replace the safety net with privatization, or with nothing at all.
Or do you maintain that Paul Ryan and company are not Republicans?
5
I'd like to see every response to the threat of socialism include references to Social Security, Medicare, public schools, etc.
75
I’m a property appraiser. Back around 2007-8, I started seeing many, many foreclosures of single family homes with the new owner named Deutsche Bank. They appeared the be the first to fall...bigly. Which means they took the biggest risks and fell the fastest. Rolls right into the trump story...lend to anyone, regardless of risk.
61
Trump said today that GM should restart or make other plans for the factory in Lordstown, Ohio, that it closed. Now that has nothing to do with Trump's loans with Deutsche Bank. But how ironic it is that a supposed capitalist is telling GM to take action that could undermine the company to the extent where it brings GM down, leading to many more job losses than just at Lordstown.
57
Rollback regulations! What’s a few airplanes in the sea when the stock market can keep on its roll?
73
Moral of the Deutsche Bank and Trump's crookedness story is that capitalism needs to be regulated and can't be left alone to their greediness and lack of ethics and morality. But, the answer is not socialism. You can't have any government plan, control, and execute millions of peoples' lives. So the answer is to discourage and prohibit, by laws and punishments, individuals and corporations that are dishonest and fraudulent.
Capitalism, like Democracy, is not perfect but it is more perfect and desirable than any other system known to mankind.
16
@Jack Yeah capitalism is swell - if you're the one at or near the top of the pyramid. Otherwise unregulated it can and does exploit and rob people as much as those running the system can get away with. No not so perfect. Perfectly rotten maybe. I'll take socialism any day.
1
@Jack
During WW2, our Government planned and controlled millions of American lives...and we won. Capitalism only works for all when it is regulated. It worked a lot better when labor unions had a strong voice. At present, many of us are serfs.
3
@Jack
Oh, baloney. Read "The Corporation"
by Joel Bakan,
" The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power",
copyright 2004, and consider that the most effective
and efficient socioeconomic systems yet devised by humans are the hybrid regulated-Capitalist/social-Democracy Governments of Scandinavia.
1
"'America will never be a socialist country,' Trump announced in his last State of the Union speech."
Really? I thought we already were a socialist country. We give away enormous amounts to corporations in the way of corporate welfare and tax breaks; financial institutions know they're too-big-to-fail, and thus can privatize their profits while making the public pay for their losses; Big Pharma, Big Oil, and others are supported by politicians who are beholden to their campaign contributions and dark money; and - here's the kicker - the very wealthiest among us can count on a redistribution of wealth in the form of tax policies that give the 1% even more money from middle and working class people, all in the hopes that they'll bestow their largesse on the rest of us in the form of jobs. And, if Republicans have their way, we'll trim back or get rid of those pesky entitlement programs that take money away from corporations and the wealthy.
The United States is already a socialist paradise! We very good at redistributing wealth.
229
@jrinsc
Another great example of American socialism is taxpayer-financed stadiums that exclude taxpayers from any share of the profits that the new stadium delivers.
5
I just don’t understand their endgame. Why do they continue to do this? What do they gain from this? The likelihood of impoverishment and a hasty deadly revolt when things go sour can happen in any country and any place.
They are already massively wealthy from unearthed wealth. What more do they need? Why not just stay away from all this nonsense and support a social democracy?
I just don’t get it. It’s like they want people to rise up and fight them.
2
@Mathias The endgame is always private, short-term profit at the expense of public, long-term welfare. The 1% has been winning this chess match for decades by using right-wing media and bought-and-paid-for politicians to brainwash conservatives (who dream that they too can join the wealthy elite) into supporting them.
OK, so Deutsche Bankers have more...(ahem)...than brains. That just puts them on a par with Trump, who, according to a certain Ms. Clifford with more than a passing familiarity with said "ahems" and who came away none too impressed. But she did get $130 Large for her outlay, without lending Donald a dime, so a much better return for her troubles than the "marks"men seem to have managed.
Another thing. In most "socialist" countries, ladies who share resumes with Ms. Stormy are considered to be gainfully employed, receiving, among other things, the benefits of medical care and old age assistance without having to resort to reminding their "Trumps" of a certain, shall we say, "indebtedness" for their maintenance of silence.
45
Capitalism GOP style:
Socializing risks while privatizing profits where the magic of the market includes inevitable bailouts funded by taxpayers aka the "Takers". Socialism for Big Finance. ...
Depleting, despoiling, or destroying shared resources -- air, water, climate -- at no cost. And if that free ride still isn't enough, the GOP is there to help. Socialism for coal barrons and the extraction industries. ...
Eminent domain to take private property to benefit rich and connected developers. Trump has been a big fan for decades even trying to take an elderly woman's house to build a casino. Socialism for real estate developers.
I'm more of an economic centrist than several of the Democractic candidates but the "S-word" does not scare me one bit. The 1% have been benefitting from it for years, a little socialism for the 99% won't kill us.
It may even save us.
147
@LT
What about Social Security? How will Republicans describe it? Socialism?
Thumbs up to your analysis.
34
@LT:
"I'm more of an economic centrist than several of the Democractic candidates but the "S-word" does not scare me one bit."
It doesn't scare me one bit either, except for the fact that the right-wing propaganda machine will use it to defeat any Democratic candidate that is claiming to be a "socialist." And that machine is very, very good at convincing working people to vote against their own best interests. They painted President Obama a Muslim socialist, and watered down the ACA and stopped much of what he wanted to do while he was pulling the economy out of the ditch Republicans put it into. They painted John Kerry a traitor and George W a war hero, and won. They painted Al Gore the "ozone man," and won. (Ever think where we would be on climate change if Gore had been elected?) They buried Dukakis and McGovern and Humphrey. And with a little help from the Russians, Jim Comey and Bernie's bros, they elected Donald Trump. We now have a right-wing, activist Supreme Court for at least a generation. Many people don't understand how good their propaganda machine is. Also on their side, we have the 18th century creations of a the electoral college system and a Senate with Republican states with small populations of people having a disproportion of power. We also have the Russians still amplifying the right-wing attacks to promote Trump and Republicans. Voter suppression rampant. Democrats have to be smart.
42
@jas2200
One way to be smart is for us to vociferously fight back. In many ways we’re too polite. An example is how we allow the conservative pundits talk over us, filibuster via word salads of wilted ideas and fresh falsehoods.
We need to develop ways to counter that while still being civil, although I admit that the Irish in me can get a bit feisty.
3
Maybe Deutsche Bank saw that some Americans have an insatiable appetite for celebrity, will believe almost anything, and concluded Trump was credit worthy because a vast majority of his countrymen would give him their trust and their money?
If so, they were not wrong.
27
@Turgid But they lost most of the money. Banks can't exist on celebrity, they exist on profits. Yes, Americans have a soft spot for hucksters, but DB fell for the same thing, and paid big for it.
1
Exactly right, Gail. The problem has never been Donald Trump. The problem has always been, and still is, the people who enable him.
119
@Eric Caine
Iq45 is the GOP's Frankenstein. They built him .
4
@Tim Lynch
And like in “Young Frankenstein”, they’re singing “Putting on the Ritz” while doing the ol’ tap dance of trickle down supply sided economics.
Hopefully this link works.
http://youtu.be/SmvuRJzads4
1
@Eric Caine Just what I've always thought about Hitler, i.e. there are many Hitlers around, alas, but that the Germans went along with it was the evil.
1
Aaron Klein is more right than he knows. Creating a debt imbalance "too big to fail" is the principle financial architecture of cheats. This is exactly why Bernie Sanders, and by extension his message of "socialism," resonates so much with the general population. Capitalism ceases to function in the absence of risk. We witnessed it full scale when George W. handed Obama a pre-packaged financial bailout within two months of an election cycle.
Trump is going to get Bernie Sanders elected. Let the free market scions of the past 40 years ponder that one for a minute. Trump is the Scythian point to financial malpractice. If you wanted a dramatic collapse to Reagan economic thinking, you couldn't pick a better leader than Donald J. Trump. Default is an understatement.
34
@Andy: Bernie has as much of a chance of getting elected as you do. And good for you for taking a cheap shot at President Obama while you are busy posting.
1
Apparently socialism is fine once you hit 65 and qualify for Medicare. At least that's what Ronald Reagan was paid to call it back when he was a B movie actor and paid by the American Medical Association to claim Medicare would end our freedom.
Last I checked, seniors are pretty darn enthusiastic about Medicare.
What we actually have as an economic system is called regulated capitalism. And the regulations generally don't impact the better companies, because they are targeted at the worst, like say, the Trump Organization or Murray Energy.
The better private organizations are self-regulating because they are very protective of their brand and want to attract and retain the best workers.
40
@Look Ahead
I seem to remember paying into SS 45 years before I got anything out.
13
@kwb
SS is not an annuity. It is a social contract between generations. Your payments supported past retirees. Current workers are funding yours. The supposed future shortfalls are based on demographic changes to the dependency ratio of workers to retirees.
27
@rhoda miller
The shortfalls are mostly based on the failure to raise the level of income for which one needs to pay social security tax. It's somewhere around 110-115k. Now, how much would people earning between 120 and 1 million in earnings suffer fro paying social security tax for their income? And the higher the income level, one might say, the less "suffering," period.
18
We ALREADY have Socialism. We just don't call it that.
What we have now is social corporate welfare for the rich and powerful as they lock in profits at the top and download all of the costs/risks onto the little people - Us.
If banks default, then they are bailed out with tax payer money. If there is a republican trade war initiated and then certain sectors (namely the base of the republican party) gets subsidized with tax payer money. If religious entities morph into political dark money slush funds, then you the tax payer are subsidizing them.
It goes on and on as the buying power of the public gets eroded as well as the confidence in the entire system, which leads to apathy, disenfranchisement and demoralization to not participate in society - mainly voting.
Essentially the point.
260
@FunkyIrishman
Don't forget the big farmers who disparage recipients of "welfare" when they are the welfare queens, collecting government subsidies, being paid to lay land fallow, and cheap government loans, while cashing in.
I am not including the Nebraska farmers who will probably go under with the destruction of the flooding.
34
Let's stick with Socialism. No, socialism is not the same as social benefits, such as an alternative health care system that covers almost everyone. However, we do have advocates for true socialism in the democratic party. This is understandable as a reaction to excessive capitalism and also from a young person's point of view who faces no home ownership, student loans, and non-affordable healthcare. In addition and related, cost of living is too high for many making about $50,000 a year and above.
Many centrists and independents see this. Thus the political tug of war. The Democratic Party will absolutely win if they dis-avow and cut off the socialists from their party, but are afraid to do so. A popular socialist candidate like Bernie Sanders leaves centrists with a horrible choice. Thus we should listen to Joe Biden, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris and other democratic candidates more closely.
17
@Mark, Bernie is a Democratic Socialist. If you are going to write, you should do so with precision. What part of Bernie’s platform calls for government ownership of the means of production?
17
@A Good Lawyer I appreciate the opportunity for clarification; Sanders describes himself as a democratic socialist, a specific type of socialist who wants public ownership of the means of production (which means the tools and money to make things) and a democratic political system.
I am not equating Bernie Sanders with the Soviet Union. And I also agree that what I will describe again as "excessive capitalism" opens the door for a socialist reaction. That is how it all starts. The slippery slope towards centralization of governmental powers at the expense of state powers, and individual liberty by extension, should be carefully considered. I know the mention of "individual liberty" will cause howls of protests, but at its core, this is what can easily occur in a centralization supporting platform. So let's listen to the other democratic candidates more carefully. Populism sounds great, but we should think more holistically instead of reacting to the ills of where part of our system has gone.
1
@Mark,
Populism is what gets people elected.
Sanders is the most popular politician in America, and was all throughout the 2016 campaign.
Regardless of how he labels himself, he has never advocated for anything more than social democracy.
And the labels don't scare people the way they used to.
If Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, every Democrat will vote for him, as well as a majority of the independents, who are sick of Trump.
3
" a clause in the contract that said he wouldn’t have to cough up the money in the event of a natural disaster"
Trump is a natural disaster! Is that how he pulled off the con job?
Others believe that the good ole boys from Moscow were behind the deals. The suggestion is, that they would guarantee Trump's loans for other considerations. We can only guess, what those considerations were.
Did someone from the bank, take Trump's SAT's for him? Strange stuff about gaining access to certain colleges have been prominent in the press lately.
47
@Texan
To call djt a natural disaster is to exculpate all the dark money and Cambridge Analytica and the Koch Brothers and Adelson and Bannon -- who all made him. Not to mention those who voted for such a cheap con man. Not to mention media organizations, including this paper, that gave him so much free publicity. And then, of course, there's the storm troopers of the republican side of congress, who march in precision to his tune. The USA had better look in the mirror: it's not a pretty sight. Neither is djt.
Gail, from here, Enrich's excellent recap of Deutsche Bank's lending policies were fully recapped with:
"Deutsche Bank officials also were impressed that Mr. Trump did not have much debt, according to people who reviewed his finances. Aside from his history of defaults, he was an attractive borrower."
Not quite the same process which kids (and their parents) seeking education loans go through.
But it is pretty much the same policy which GOP'er party leaders had when they foisted djt on an unsuspecting public without demanding he produce his tax returns; hmmm, how IS that (Fake) little ol' IRS audit coming, anyhow ?
Yet the worst of it is that Vulture Capitalists who are Bankruptcy Kings have no actual ability to put things together and 'create value' at all, for anyone but themselves; they are preternatural specialists in taking things apart which were working just fine until they showed up 'to help', and talking a good game to distract from the dismemberment happening right in front of your eyes.
62
Actually, defaulting on loans may be a big winner for Trump. We won't know until his tax returns are made public. Suppose you own property valued at $100 and you have a mortgage of $80 on it. So you only have $20 invested. If the investment goes bust, you can deduct the $100 loss minus the basis ($20) that you paid. You save big money in taxes by taking that loss. In 1995 Trump's tax returns show that he took a loss of $916 million that could be spread over the next 18 years to shelter other income from taxes. But the tax law provides a way for the IRS to recoup the taxes saved by the loss. The idea is that when the property goes bust, you default on the mortgage ($80). If the mortgage holder says that you don't have to pay, the forgiven mortgage looks like $80 of income, and you have to pay the taxes on that amount. After all, you already received the $80 of mortgage money, and did not pay income tax when the mortgage was granted. The problem is that there might be ways to move the mortgages around before the bank takes a default, and perhaps, there is a way to avoid the forgiven mortgage as showing up as income. We don't know if Trump did this because we have not seen his relevant tax returns. In a true capitalistic economy, the forgiven mortgage would be taxed. If Trump has avoided paying taxes on defaulted loans, this may be his version of capitalism but is is not the intention of capitalism as the US practices it.
41
@Harold
It may well not be "the intention of capitalism as the US practices it" but it sure is the way things come out.
The Trump "base" might not actually be the only angry group here.
4
It’s time for everyone to reap the rewards of our fathers and grandfathers who work the plants the built the wealth, and have now had their pensions, retirement and home equity raided by banks that were too big to fail.
We have automation and Wall Street. Let the robots pay for my healthcare instead of another yacht or home for a corporate billionaire. The citizens made the wealth. Make the robots who are taking our jobs pay our bills. There simply aren’t enough good paying jobs in this country. Sorry, I understand capitalism, I’m a business owner, but it’s time to redistribute the wealth.
Otherwise we will see civil war and another Trump.
67
@Concerned
The TARP loans were paid back. Actually the government made money off the ‘bailout’. Look it up.
40
@Driven
You are not including a comparison calculation how the TARP money loaned to BANKS could have been put to work for other investments that created revenue in this country for taxpayers and money the BANKS should have been making and paying taxes on had they not gotten so greedy and essentially financed junk quality investments such as credit default swaps.
20
@Driven
TARP was designed to provide time and liquidity to large corporations so that they could continue to share their corporate largesse by continuing to invest in personnel and R&D. Instead they hoarded cash and laid off employees - including highly skilled and educated ones - while building up their balance sheet at the expense of American workers. The legacy of that is the hordes of 60ish and 70ish employees who can't retire and the hordes of 30ish and 40ish folks who are under-employed. The 20ish folks are not seeing a future they like. So the TARP loan repayment is really irrelevant if we're talking about the good of the American people.
18
I find it rather amusing that Trump did business with a bank located in a country that has a solid social welfare safety net. But if he was planning to play his usual games I suppose that was better than him dealing with multiple American banks and those banks losing money but making it up in the fees they charge we the little people who can't afford fees.
I like to think of what FDR said about the Four Freedoms: “In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world. The second is freedoms of every person to worship god in his own way – everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want…everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear…anywhere in the world. That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation."
— Franklin D. Roosevelt, January 6, 1941
Trump and the GOP are trying to prevent us from having any of those freedoms on the grounds that they are socialist. If that's socialism, I want more of it.
548
@hen3ry
Your comments about freedoms are spot on; as for Deutsche Bank, what's missing from the article and comments so far is that they were fined $41 million by the Feds in 2017 for money laundering and that begs the question as to whether there was a different motive for making loans that looked like they made no sense; my guess is that Deutsche Bank and the Trumps will be implicated in the sordid truth that will be on the table for all to see when Mueller's report comes out - Steve Bannon has predicted this; Faux News will probably tell us that it's a feature, not a bug.
26
@hen3ry
If that socialism is wrong,then I don't want to be right.
6
@Ted Morton
trump was a dump site for laundered Russian Oligarchal Mafia money.
3
There is no battle between capitalism and socialism going on in this country. There is a battle between capitalism and corruption, and it is being waged entirely within the Democratic party. The Republicans have been championing corruption and calling it "capitalism" ever since Reagan, and most of the Democrats have acquiesced. This is the first time in decades that honest Democrats have a chance to take back the narrative. But the Bidens & Clintons & the so-called "moderates" will fight them tooth & nail.
89
@Martin
A house divided cannot stand. Please, get involved and improve the party. Don't tear it down with words.
4
@Martin: If you liked what happened in 2016, keep singing that tune.
4
@Martin So who is running in between the socialists and the moderates? Who wants a carbon tax and a public option and a reformed tax system with gradually increased marginal rates and tuition free public colleges and affirmative action and Great Society welfare? Are there any liberals running?
The biggest problem with socialism, if you can fairly call it a problem, is it's vulnerability to corruption. Conservatives do have a point that big government has a bigger capacity to wield it's power against the people that it serves. On the other hand, the corruptions that misdirect the mission of the government to serve the people have been most openly embraced by the republicans. The republicans and the global corporate empire have taken full advantage of the weaknesses that socialism provides to a ruthless "rent seeking" corporatist strategy.
Of course, the fact is that the US is already a substantially socialist country.
Socialism: a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be (sic) regulated by the community as a whole.
12
@J.I.M., you need to spend some time with the history and political science books. I recommend a course or two at your local community college. You are trying to foist your own definition of socialism on a fairly sophisticated audience. We are not buying. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production.
10
@J.I.M. -- So J.I.M (love the initials!) you're saying that a non-socialist government, or economic system, would be less likely to have corruption? Sure, I believe that. But if you could provide some evidence for it, that would be nice. My business and economic history courses seemed to instruct me that there was plenty of corruption, at all levels of government, when capitalism was mostly unregulated, in the 1870-1920s era. Also plenty of 'trusts' (monopolies) and plenty of economic instability. No social safety net to speak of, other than private charities. Would that be what you're advocating for? Also, I don't think "socialism" means what you think it means... at least not in any dictionary I could find. Your definition sounds a lot more like regulated capitalism, and the area of contention in most modern developed countries economic theories pivots around the degree of regulation, not the need for regulation per se. If you want really "unregulated capitalism", look to the criminal side of the economy. The drug cartels are not subject to any 'regulation' when competing among themselves... and look at how well that goes.
I'm thinking that unregulated capitalism is an open invitation to corruption, to monopoly, and to instability. If I have to choose that or "socialism", I think the choice is pretty clearcut.
14
@Jim Brokaw
Agree with you. Remember child labor, the infamous Shirtwaist Fire, Black Lung disease from unventilated mines? Mine deaths without safe escape routes? The 2008 Recession from uncontrolled Default Credit Swaps; some small banks failed under Greenspan's "reformed" lending policies, as did Fannie May et al.
9
We had our socialism experiment with the multiple failures of Norman Thomas a century ago. But, before we rush to the Bernie problem, let's remember that we may be in for the ultimate Trump October surprise--a bankruptcy, in this case a massive reprise of 2008 given Trump's treasury draining tax cuts for the rich, his deregulation of the big banks, his debilitating tariff trade war with everyone, and now banks replicating the fiasco of packaging and selling subprime mortgages with packaging and selling high-risk corporate debt. The master of the Art of Default and the King Kong of Bankruptcy is pushing us relentlessly toward the economic abyss of another Great maybe even the Greatest (what else would be Trump-worthy) Recession. This time we must not let him blame it on Obama, Janet Yellen, the Fed, but remember no one, Trump especially, is "Too Big To Jail." As Brett Kavanugh opined, "What goes around comes around." This time it will be "Lock him up!"
251
@Paul Wortman It will be timed to occur in 2021 so that either Trump is safely in round two or the Democrat somehow gets the blame.
1
@Paul Wortman Surely, you don't think the ACLU is a failure? Whatever else the Rev Thomas "failed" at, this one success guarantees his celebrity.
1
What does it say about a bank that is so poorly run that it gave Donald Trump a second loan to make payments on a prior loan in default?
You want to keep your money safe? Keep it away from Deutsche Bank.
Trump wants to label Democrats socialists. Fine. Equate socialism to society. Democrats care about people.
On the other hand we find Republicans who want the 1% to own everything. They care about no one, but the wealthy.
364
@JABarry
The bank is not focused on normal banking, but rather on other things, perhaps money laundering for oligarchs. That is how it stays in business even if its loans are reckless when judged by normal banking standards.
There is enough circumstantial evidence to support many conspiracy theories.
22
@JABarry - you have to watch what Germany does over the bank's desire to merge with Commerzbank (?). Look for additional regs, but then again, maybe you won't find any, just biz as per usual.
2
@sdavidc9-Indeed! How does Deutsche rationalize its recklessness?
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate
http://www.philly.com/philly/columnists/will_bunch/ag-sessions-the-russian-lawyer-and-the-money-laundering-case-that-went-away-20170717.html
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/07/trump-putin-russia-collusion.html
http://www.npr.org/2017/07/25/539314966/democrats-say-probe-trump-ties-to-deutsche-bank-gop-says-no-thanks
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/russian-organized-crime.htm
1
Socialism might well give us Trump (again) if Democratic over-enthusiasm unnecessarily feeds the Republican propaganda machine by nominating someone with electability problems.
62
@PJ Good idea. Let's let the Republicans decide who the Democratic candidate will be.
17
@PJ
FDR was "over enthusiastic"; he gave us Social Security; Truman, another enthusiast, gave us Medicare. Obama gave us the ACA. Eisenhower gave us the inter-State highway system, please name any other Republican Presidents who gave the general public something. Trump's big tax cut, permanent for corporations, will create one big deficit for future generations to pay.
14
@Kelly Arthur Garrett
"Let's let the Republicans decide who the Democratic candidate will be."
.....and then keep that designee off the ballot.
2
Socialism for the Rich is one of Capitalism's time-honored programs - a fully-fledged Republican Plutocrat program.
The once many free college universities and colleges for all the people are now merely a few in number having been diminished by them.
147
It's one thing to default on loans to Deutsche Bank, a capitalist enterprise, which (presumably) profits from the majority of its loans and therefore prudently (one hopes) covers its exposure to high rolling deadbeats like Mr. Trump.
It's quite another to crater the budget of the United States of America with reckless and economically magical thinking, and amass vast debts which only generations of working taxpayers will be obligated to pay (given the permanent corporate cuts).
Newly released statistics from the government confirm working taxpayers now pumped in more than half of the nations tax revenues, thanks to the Trump cuts, while corporations paid 6% - a stomach turning change, given the yawning crater of debt the cuts simultaneously created.
And the President is proposing even deeper cuts, with expanded defense spending, in a truly Trumpian effort to address the failure of his economic policies.
Socialism and communism were each born to correct the predatory capitalist excesses and income gaps of the last century. Clearly, history is not the President's strong suit.
852
@Neander -- Your Republican friends (or at least, the Fox "News" pundits) will counter your observation about corporation's share of federal tax revenues with the old saying "Corporations don't really pay taxes, their customers pay taxes". Which means, to them, that if corporate taxes were higher, the corporations would just pass on the higher taxes to their customers. And that's all true.
What these brilliant Republicans don't say is that for American corporations (now paying 6% of federal tax revenues) that have customers overseas, which many large corporations do (some even doing the majority of their business offshore) - it is the overseas customers paying those US taxes. Instead, these Republican savants want all us US resident taxpayers to pay all the federal revenues... which is where we end up when we reduce the corporate tax rates like Trump and his Republican Congressional doormats did.
My proposal - tax US corporations overseas sales revenues at a higher rate, so the corporations can 'pass through' that higher tax rate to their offshore customers, which will hopefully have them pickup a share of the federal tax revenue, while we don't have to give them any federal government services. Win-win! But I never hear any Republican pundits pointing this out... sure can't figure out why. It couldn't possibly be that they've been bought and paid for by corporate lobbyists, could it? Nah... can't be.
40
@Neander
But Trump supporters believe that corporations are oppressed by excessively high tax rates and that those tax cuts will lead to more investment in equipment and hiring of American workers.
24
@Larry
It didn't after Reagan's tax cuts; it won't now. It will go towards bonuses.
51
As stated elsewhere, there is a big difference between a socialist government and a social democracy. One is government owned; the other is people owned, caring for their fellow citizens.
741
@Tom
The problem is that a significant portion of the population doesn't have a clue that there is a difference, and Fox News exists to make sure that the difference with never be pointed out.
29
@Tom
The republicans will NEVER admit to such a difference. And their willfully uneducated base will never understand the difference.
17
@NY->TX - give it some time, I bet they (FOX) come away from the dark side.
I can't wait to banish socialism from America in one key arena: the socializing of business risks. No more government bailouts for Wall Street banks, no more sweetheart government loans to pharma, tech, and energy startups, no more subsidies for toxic cleanups, no more taxpayer-supported research and data that companies can privatize for free. Business people can shoulder all those expenses themselves, because they have what it takes to haul themselves up by their bootstraps.
1446
@ann Can we add to list professional sports stadiums and arenas?
520
@ann Trump wrote a billion off, that is 1,000,000,000 on his income tax, we, the tax payers paid lost, LOST. We might have better schools if we , the tax payers had not given that money to Trump and probably his cronies too.
129
@ann
Yes to Federal farm subsidies? Me thinks: NO.
83