Jim, the biggest problem with Capitalism in my opinion is in your article, “Capitalism vs Socialism vs Communism” where you write, “Large, privately owned and privately managed corporations and banks who say their primary mission (often only mission) is to maximize profits”. I think corporations are the problem. Businesses so big that they do not have a owner to take responsibility. You can fire a CEO and what happens? They just replace them with a new one. As soon as a majority shareholder wants out, they can “usually” cash out. All they worry about now is maximizing these profits like you said. The direct customer interaction is lost when the ma and pa stores were all out competed.

In the Maddison reading, I like to make a point of the first real world growth slowdown since the Great Depression. It says that 1973 was the year that everything really started slowing down with the exception of East Asia. I think this is directly linked to the US finally getting out of war. Essentially as soon as WWII finished up, Vietnam started. Just like we typically see with war, we had a great stimulated economy during the fighting and the demand goods and technological advances for our military and manufacturing processes.

I have enjoyed every economics class I have ever had. I find economies very interesting and appreciate the critical thinking it promotes. This class in particular was of interest to me because of the different economic systems we will be able to compare. I think it’s important to hear different thoughts and perspectives about the systems we place into our communities and societies. For these reasons I look forward to hearing from all of you.

Hi, everybody! My name is Anthony, but to most people it’s Tony. I’ve taken classes here at LCC for four years on and off, skipped around with a couple of different majors. I tried to login a couple different times earlier in the week but never had the text-boxes show up. I recently just got back from skiing in Big Sky, Montana during winter break and had a blast. Now it’s time to get ready for the semester. I am currently pursuing my associate degree in business administration as well as beginning to take on a couple information technology classes.