Democrats Offer Rehash of Same Old Song

 

Rereleasing old songs, as if they were new, works well in Hollywood as we always hope the remake of an old favorite movie will offer more pizzazz and though some do, most just let us down and we leave the theater feeling hollow. The music industry does the same thing with old songs, often over and over, and still the original is often the one we prefer best. But at least Hollywood and the music industry choose successful movies and songs to try to modernize, and still they usually fail the test of time. The Democrat Party is trotting out their oldest theme which has worked by lulling the people with stories of getting everything for free and never having to pay. The electorate soon realizes that there is no free lunch and somebody has to pay. The sad reality is that often the people who were promised that everything was to be free are the exact ones who end up paying. But the Democrats believe that they can win the youth over with their message of redistribution of wealth and everything for free with only the wealthy paying. What the Democrats are not telling them is that anybody who has a job is the Democrat definition of wealthy.

 

The War on Poverty has failed which is proven through the Cato Institute study showing that the collection of federal and state welfare benefit packages could deliver over $30,000 to a family without them working or even seeking employment. Perhaps this free stuff is the incentive to remain taking all the free stuff offered rather than working as if done to the full extent, one could keep the family fed for free. Benjamin Franklin offered some brutal and painful truths when he stated, “I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” Benjamin Franklin allowed for people who were new in poverty, such as those whose job was abolished by unforeseen calamity such as the workplace closing, to receive temporary benefits, as their newfound poverty was not of their making. But as with many such allowances, it comes with a but, and that but is these are to be temporary and none should be supported by other people’s labors permanently, especially over a prolonged period. Franklin firmly felt that making people uncomfortable with poverty was the best remedy for their situation and not making the life of those in poverty comfortable and wanting for nothing. Perhaps it was this position which had the mint place Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill pictured below.

 

Ben Franklin on the $100.00 Bill

 

Numerous studies have shown that those in the United States who are considered to be in poverty have a modern flat screen television, computers, a vehicle which is more often previously owned but some have new cars, a microwave and numerous other items which could be considered to be a luxury. We remember the first time such a study was released, which was before flat screens, so then it was just color televisions and stereo systems, we were left somewhat stunned as we did not own a microwave as they were still too pricey for a retail salesperson’s and a secretary’s salaries. We found that one reason was the poverty-stricken were residing in government assisted housing while we resided in the posh suburbs in a spacious two bedroom apartment. The italicized should be read with great sarcasm as the government assisted housing area was less than a mile away across the city limits inside Philadelphia while we then resided in Ben Salem just off Street Road, yes, that was the name of the road. This is not then a new problem as this refers to a survey performed in the 1970’s when even many Democrats feared that those in poverty had become too comfortable in their poverty.

 

The truth which needs repeating, and should be taught to students in their introductory economics classes and political science classes, but that would be considered detrimental and not aiding in the proper indoctrination of the student to expect and support full Europeanizing of the United States, is that socialism has and will always fail. Another item which bares repeating is that the United States was the nation, and even before nationhood, the region where one ran from Europe and its habits, to start a new world where if one worked hard they would succeed and not have governments dictate where their moneys were to be spent. The American Revolution was over a three percent tax on tea. Let that sink in, a three percent tax on tea. It was the principle that they were being taxed to support somebody else’s spending and that this spending was done without their even being allowed a vote to elect the government taxing them to cover its expenditures. Many people in America today did not vote for those who support these seemingly extravagant welfare related expenditures, especially to allow a family to collect a government provided allotment greater than their salaries after taxation. We can fully understand one taking the government handout and not working if in order to take home an equivalent sum annually would require, if our math is accurate, over $42,500 in salary per year. That requires being employed at over $20.00/hr working a forty-hour week. With such generosity provided by the government, one would be foolish to take employment at minimum wage, even if it was the $15.00/hr that the Democrats are pushing. With welfare and other subsidies offering such free money which exceeds even their dreamed of higher minimum wage, it is no wonder that employers are unable to fill minimum wage entry positions. Oh, and guess who pays for all of this largess? Anyone making over $20.00/hr, that’s who.

 

So, where as those who have learned to live off the system may be receiving a free lunch, those who work and pay for it know that their lunch is far from free. We have heard about the degrading system which makes one wait in lines and the shame in paying for groceries with the government card and all the other horrible requirements made for people to collect these funds. We also know the other side of approaching half one’s paycheck being eaten by taxes, federal, state, county and city. Even FICA now goes directly into the general fund as the lock-box has been eliminated as the politicians found leaving little IOU’s on the “Social Security” lock-box far too tedious when stealing what was supposed to be set aside to pay for Social Security in the future. The politicians act like there still is such a lock-box, and there is, it is just no funds are ever inserted as all funds enter immediately into the main stream of cash flowing through Washington D.C. in order to pay for all the goodies they keep enacting. What the systems for eliminating poverty are now accomplishing is guaranteeing that once one reaches the stage of going onto these programs, they become all but impossible to leave simply because it would require quite a cut back in one’s lifestyle as at an entry wage one would have to take almost a one-third cut in their income.

 

Everyone remembers their first paycheck; they waited eagerly those first few weeks, regularly computing all the money they would get, all but spending it on music or the down payment on a super stereo (we were just beginning high school when we went through this calamity), and then we receive the envelope with the check with all our hard earned money inside. Then we opened the envelope and the sum in the box marked, pay to, and the shock went through our young bodies, the mind raced, we felt a little queasy and just knew something had to be wrong. We asked our go-to experts on all things in the real world, we knew them as Mom and Dad, and usually we asked Dad these questions, and Dad explained taxes and how as we were working part time we would get most of those withholdings back sometime next year. Withholdings, next year, whose idea was this rip-off, we wanted names and addresses so we could go and well, go and do something. Time proceeded along its pace and we stopped planning on spending our money until we actually had the check and even got to the point we could estimate what would be left for us. Then you are placed on the sales floor and are paid by commission against minimum wage, which made figuring out your paycheck became calculus. But that shock of the withholdings is one you never get past and when money gets tight, emergencies or whatever, it happens, that is when you really feel that the system is broken.

 

The reason is simple, by taxing the rich using the income tax you are missing their wealth as the truly rich invest, they do not work for a salary, and the average CEO gets stock bonuses and a car and chauffeur and other perks, not a big salary. They pay little to no income tax as income tax is the way the truly wealthy make sure no regular working stiff ever makes into their ranks protecting their status as those with all the power. They may eventually, if they do not reinvest their funds fast enough, have to pay capital gains taxes but only on the increased value of the stocks, the principle is never touched. Their initial wealth remains untouched and should they decide to buy another mansion, they buy it as an investment such that they get to use it as a deduction against their capital gains taxes. They often have all their expenses taken off their portfolio so as to use them as losses incurred and pay themselves some paltry salary as spending money off a trust fund set up to avoid paying taxes. The only way of touching these wealthy, the truly wealthy, would be a wealth tax, and that will never happen. Just for the record, ever wonder how Congresscritters become so wealthy on what is a mediocre income? The answer is so basic that it will really upset you, Congresscritters and their senior staff are immune from insider trading laws because they have so much insider information that they would not be able to control and invest their wealth if they needed to obey such restrictions. These are the people screaming that Trump is staying at hotels where he owns the property and they make insider deals knowing which company is about to receive billions in tax monies for some government program? Please, give us a break. They are all scoundrels.

 

The whole problem is that the monies one receives in the various welfare systems cannot exceed the take-home pay of a minimum wage earner or there is no incentive to go out and work. But the Democrats have a solution for that. Remember, their solution for high college tuition is for government to pay for college, free college, their solution to high medical bills is for government to pay the medical bills, their solution for the problem of the moment is for government to pay, their solution to all your problems is for government to pay; but the government does not earn any money, they just take it from those who work. We wish to close quoting Margaret Thatcher who once said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.” That is exactly the problem that Venezuela is suffering, Greece is suffering, Italy is suffering and what eventually killed the Soviet Union and cripples Cuba and most of Europe. That is another reason for the United States not to go down the apparently perfect plan of socialism and instead to return to the Constitution and limited government with the powers accumulated in Washington D.C. being redistributed amongst the individual states where the people have greater control.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Death of Democratic Republic

 

The United States was founded as a Constitutional Democratic Republic and according to John Adams, “We have no government, armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge and licentiousness would break the strongest cords of our Constitution, as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Another comment on how a Constitutional Democratic Republic can be brought low came from Benjamin Franklin, who predicted, “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” But it is not completely the people’s selfishness that is sinking the United States and that was predicted by Alexis de Tocqueville who added this adage to the above, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” Anyone care to guess which of these three problems is driving the American experiment in self-rule into the ground fastest? Kings and Queens argued against giving power to their subjects claiming that humankind was completely incapable of self-rule as their own greed and indifference to consequences of their actions and their lack of training in governance would all lead to disastrous results if not immediately, guaranteed to do so over time. People, they claimed, would tend to destroy wealth in the name of equality and that there would never be sufficient wealth to satisfy the redistributors as they would continue to destroy all concentrations of wealth in their mistaken proposals and programs meant to introduce fairness and equality until those who generated wealth were no longer sufficiently financially capable of investment and thus unable to continue to produce wealth for those pursuing fairness to steal.

 

The problems faced currently are that the government absorbed one means after another which had formerly been the purview of religious and charitable institutions. This led to two immediate results; the government was required to demean and spread suspicions that religious institutions and charities were incapable of fairness and that they were too steeped in religion to provide assistance without guilt. They made the claim that the poor need not listen to a sermon in order to receive a meal. Then came the claims that many religious institutions and charitable organizations were possibly providing substandard nutrition or preparing their meals in unsafe manner in potentially unclean environment and might spread diseases or serve contaminated food. This then led to the establishment of regulations and inspections and requirements of reports including the calorie, vitamin, fat content and immeasurable other breakdown of the meals provided to such a point that churches and charities simply gave in to government pressure surrendering their position as the provider of aid to the poor to the government as they could not continue against the power of government regulatory powers. The same occurred with providing shelter for the homeless and many other such assistances which slowly but inexorably became government programs. Food Stamps, Government Provided Shelters, Welfare, Section 8 Housing and on and on program after program and government had complete control over what had been privately provided charity which was financed through religious institutions and donations from people willing to provide funds for these causes. Now the funding comes from taxation which means that government has replaced voluntary donations with forced donations. Some have referred to this as the government playing Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the poor. That gets Robin Hood completely wrong as he stole from the government and returned the funds to the public from which it was taken (stolen according to Robin). The Sheriff of Nottingham and the King were not the rich, they were the government and the peasants were not only the poor but also the people who the King and Sheriff of Nottingham taxed (stole) the money (gold and silver) from and thus Robin Hood stole from the government and returned to the tax payers. Today the government is literally taking from the rich and giving to the poor through taxing the rich and returning that treasure to the poor who did not pay taxes thus it is completely not Robin Hood-like but completely separate.

 

Hunting Your Uncle Sam’s Deer Are We?

 

But there is another form of gifting public treasure which is far more evil than all the previously mentioned programs and which does not actually benefit the people and is almost always left out of demands for ending government funding. This is most often referred to as corporate welfare. Government gives away many millions, no, wait, certainly billions of dollars, to numerous companies often for questionable reasons. On the web corporate welfare is defined as bestowal of money grants, tax breaks, or other special favorable treatment for corporations. This often ends up becoming taking money from the people, including those who compared to these corporations and companies are the poor, and giving to the corporations or the rich in some means. According to Cheat Sheet the eight largest recipients in ascending order are, Nike @ $2.03 Billion, Royal Dutch Shell @ $2.04 Billion, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles @ $2.06 Billion, Ford @ $2.52 Billion, General Motors @ $3.58 Billion, Intel @ $3.87 Billion, Alcoa @ $5.64 Billion and Boeing @ $13.18 Billion. Well, we can understand the General Motors as so many now refer to GM as Government Motors and apparently we can say the same for the rest of the Big Three auto motive companies from the United States. Now if one were to challenge the government, or your local Congress Critter, about these subsidies of such companies and their response would be that they are essential for the national defense, they are required in order for them to compete with companies from other nations who subsidize their industries or they might simply stutter and sputter and call on the next questioner.

 

Another area where government largess is generously spread around is in the agricultural endeavors. Farms are actually paid to raise dairy cows because before refrigeration there was the need for dairy cows to be raised throughout the United States in order for dairy products to be available in every location. But with the wonders of refrigeration, these subsidies are superfluous as now dairy products could easily be transported from the dairy states to those where such farms are economically impractical due to lack of water, grass and the other requirements necessary for raising healthy dairy cows. There are also subsidies to farms growing corn and since these have climbed to near astronomical proportions as the ethanol industry demands more corn, the acreage of wheat production has plummeted while corn has replaced wheat in many areas. This has created two problems beyond potential wheat shortages worldwide, as raising corn requires additional nutrients and more water, the demand for irrigation waters is lowering the water tables at an increased rate and runoff of fertilizer has increased causing difficulties in many river runoff areas, especially places of slower moving or stationary water as this runoff leads to poisoned fish and over growth of algae and other plants in rivers and especially lakes. Further, farms are often paid not to raise certain crops or raise certain animals in order to allow food prices to remain substantial enough for farming to show a profit. These programs end up assisting the industrial farms to a far greater degree than the family farmers they were proposed to assist. Again, the reason for these programs has been to continue to make farming profitable rather than having the rules of supply and demand to control what farmers grow.

 

There is an example of supply and demand working its magic in eastern Colorado where many farmers with some of the best topsoil grow sugar beets for a simple reason, if their crop of sugar beets is of high enough quality they will catch top dollar from the Coors brewing company to use in their production of Coors beer. The land is quite capable of growing other crops but not one which can bring such a high price as Coors offers the incentive for such quality sugar beets in order to assure themselves a ready supply locally of the requirements for their product. As for the grains for their beer, well, they are located quite near great fields of grains within a short distance including in Colorado wherever the soil is not rich enough to grow high quality sugar beets of which there is ample acreage. Still, was government not to provide these subsidies there would be some disquieting periods of economic upheaval after which there would be fewer companies in many industries and the healthiest and most efficient companies would survive? Perhaps there are a relative few companies which were necessary for military readiness but in the modern era there are very few companies who are purely reliant on military spending to survive as the demands of the private sector now has requirements of ships, aircraft and even automotive who can change some production to produce military products such as armored vehicles. Further, military production is now done on a very sparse demand with rare but occasional high demand when replacing longstanding equipment. For these demands one would likely find entrepreneurs more than willing to make bids and then invest in the necessary production facilities to produce armored vehicles while ships and aircraft already have ready manufacturers. But if such an argument could be proven to have merit, then perhaps some outlay might be called for.

 

The problem is that with corporations, people, even NGO’s all making demands on government claiming that they require the government largess, their service is worthy of government largess, or some claim is found which demands government funding combined with the elected representatives use government funds in order to buy the faithful votes of a particular constituency by warning that other political challengers would cut or end the flow of money, food stamps, housing allowances, utility payments, free stuff and so on thus buying support to keep them in office. Because the people lost their faith in religious institutions as the government spent much time, funds, advertising and editorials in parallel with increased regulations matching the claimed weakness of religious institutions and charities allowing the government to incrementally replace them in caring for the less fortunate.

 

Then they quietly over time subsidized corporations initially claiming their necessity for the defense of the country in times of war and subsequently simply arguing that the companies or corporations were necessary economically and without the “temporary” assistance, nothing ends up being temporary as once the money is outlaid it is never retracted, these companies would potentially go out of business putting some unacceptable number of employees out of work. What is really being protected is a company which is not sufficiently competitive and if allowed to go out of business it would soon be replaced by somebody with a better idea or a better means for production or something making them competitive. It might be argued that the national security requires at a minimum one company in every vital industry for the possible future protection of the nation. Where this argument hits a snag was the steel industry which almost went completely out of business as their production equipment and processes became outdated. The entire industry faced this challenge and some companies went out of business and others retooled and became modernized allowing them to return stronger than before. Some of the retooling received government assistance but this once it was a one-time outlay and not a continuous flow of revenue. Should these outlays continue the government will continue to spend more than it can possibly collect which will forever add to the deficit which will eventually cause hyperinflation which will end the time of the United States as a super power? If the government attempts to collect sufficient tax revenues to allow these payments to continue at current levels, then the entire financial system would collapse as eventually those who were being more heavily taxed would find working a fool’s game and simply join those on the dole.

 

The other choice would be to scale back payments or start terminating programs allowing those currently on support to have their funds slowly lessened eventually being terminated in some predefined period of time. Another option would be to ramp back until the payments were completely terminated on the subsidizing corporations and companies and even farming, especially the large corporate farming conglomerates. Finally, the government should deregulate the assistance from charities and religious institutions allowing them to return to what they had so adequately provided before being driven from assisting people in need. Such a return to the religious institutions serving the public and their communities and taking a greater role in their communities and the nation the United States could potentially find some returning to their religious affiliations simply because as active members in their societies, they would become relevant again. The removal of religious institutions from their community functions and relevance might have been a contributing factor to the loss of faith in the nation as a whole. Humankind is a funny animal in that he does not conscience things which serve no real purpose and religion had always been the caretaker of the needy in the United States. When government removed this function from the religious institutions and took away their function as adoption services, they made religion superfluous as government had replaced it. Without government returning valuable functions to religious institutions and private charities, then these functions will become solely the province of government and government will become the new religion, which was their intent.

 

Once this has been established irrevocably, which it has all but become, then they will work on replacing the only item not completely under their purview, parenting and raising children. The public schools are already making inroads on the parent-child relationship. In too many cities (one would be too many but in too many cites it is already occurring) it is being usurped by the schools. Many will claim we are being alarmist but we have witnessed this ourselves as have friends where the school teachers were telling their students that their parents were not permitted to punish them, ground them, deny them their rights to telephone usage, television viewing, listening to music, watching particular programs, going out with their friends and numerous other actions, then they should tell their teachers and the school would look into if this was proper and take their side against the parents. They were told that it might result in criminal charges if their parents did not do as the school would advise. The best resort of any parent facing this would be to explain to their child what it would be like in foster care or in an orphanage if Mom and Dad were forced to give them up because they went to the school claiming that their parents were being cruel and denying them rights. Explain what a right is and what is a privilege and the difference and then review the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and ask them where telephone use was a right. When they are unable to prove whatever grounding you are imposing is denial of a right, then explain that privileges can be revoked for improper acts and that is what you are doing.

 

One sad thing we must all understand is that in time populations will be controlled and even then the majority of people will be kept simply because work will have become an optional pursuit. Anything one does will earn a salary with a living wage guaranteed as long as you were to contributing in some manner, writing a blog, writing poetry, composing songs, performing music, performing comedy, acting out dramas, researching mathematics, teaching, inventing, growing grapes, brewing or whatever one desired. Of course if your desire is to go from one party to another, then you make the living wage. Perhaps we will all receive a credit card where there are different levels by color and your living standard is determined by which card you receive which would also be determined by a formula we would all know. Then there would be another choice where one applies and if accepted are sent on multi-generational spaceships out into the cosmos in some new direction or in a direction where we have received communications telling of planets capable of supporting life. This world will be the life of our children or grandchildren when artificial intelligence (AI) govern the planet, robots perform almost all job functions as they replace humans in production, retail, food service and everything else while AI robots perform prototyping, engineering, manufacturing, production facility construction, building construction, residential construction and every job with very few exceptions.

 

Aristotle, Euclid, Descartes
Newton, Riemann, Einstein

 

Humans would still work in some fields alongside the AI systems such as theoretical sciences and hard science research as no matter how intelligent the AI systems and robots become, there is one thing which will take far more advances than we can even begin to understand, and that is an AI which has the ability to imagine, to invent things which have no logical lead-up which require illogical jumps of reason from which proofs can then be derived but only by reverse proofs. The great discoveries of history which we take for granted today were completely beyond reason such as Einstein’s theories, Riemann’s geometry, Newtonian physics, Descartes’s “Cogito ergo sum”, Euclidean Geometry and Aristotle’s philosophies and logic. AI systems may some day get to such a level as to make great leaps in thought which are independent of straight logic, but for the time being we humans are the only ones who imagine on such a scale. That is a far future, in the meantime, in order to get there we need to repair the problems of now and do so with a great urgency.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What Should be Included as the New Western Ethic?

 

There is an obvious pushback against President Trump throughout the Western World. Many areas of Europe, Canada, Australia and especially the United States in complete authentic meltdown over the prospect that Trump might succeed. This criticism of anything outside of the new ethic being modeled for the past seventy years or so has reached the point where accepting a speaking engagement could cost you your health if not your life should anyone start a rumor that your beliefs are unacceptably conservative or old fashioned. Take the reception Charles Murray received as he was almost lynched at the liberal college of Middlebury College in the state whose motto is “Live Free or Die,” Vermont. What was his crime? Well, he wrote the controversial book “The Bell Curve” which made claims that some people were more gifted than others and that there was a distribution of intelligence with a large median area and a slope downward from there in both directions. How absolutely horrid and insulting not recognizing that we are all equally gifted, just each of us differently. Nobody is smarter or faster or better at anything and we all deserve a trophy because we were there whether we engaged or just sat in the corner dreaming, we get a trophy. Our new age does not believe in competition, keeping score, recognizing winners or shaming losers to try harder, we just accept everybody and whatever efforts they feel they need to contribute today.

 

That is the one set of ideas which must be thoroughly erased from society, the work ethic, the idea that there are winners and losers, competition as a way of improving, striving to better oneself, making money, capitalism, actually defining words and having accepted correct spelling, standards, and the belief that some ideas and societies are superior to others and that freedom is something which is not only worth defending but requires defending because there are those who would subjugate the world forcing it to be ruled under their autocratic thumb. Wait, one of those groups are the elitists who are so against the ideals and ideas of Western culture and believe that Western ethics and culture is oppressive and evil. They find it based on violence because it has defended its freedoms and ideals from those who would have subjugated and destroyed their world. They claim that Western culture and society was responsible for World War II and the Cold War and that had they simply not fought to keep their culture everything would have been so much better. Sure the Nazis were not exactly friendly but did the world really need be turned into a shooting gallery just to defeat the Nazis and the equally disturbing Imperial Japan? Of course not as the Western nations should have negotiated with them. Those claiming such forget that there was this little thing called the Munich Agreement which Neville Chamberlin signed with Adolph Hitler as well as Georges Bonnet of France and Joachim von Ribbentrop for Germany, Benito Mussolini for Italy and declared as “Peace in our time.” The main detractor was Winston Churchill who was called the crazy old man and was ostracized by the leftist pacifists of that day who just like the modern leftists saw nothing to be gained by war and saw little need to defend against the Nazi threat because a treaty had put an end to the menace and Hitler was appeased. Well, not quite as Hitler next demanded Poland and divided it with the Soviets under the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. That act finally was more than the French or British were willing to permit and they went to war. Unfortunately, with the time given to the Nazis they had built a formidable war machine with which they came within a razors edge of winning World War II before the United States entered the war. Had they defeated the British and then turned against Russia successfully, the world would likely be speaking German today and there would be no Western culture to speak of and the modern leftists would have their dream, a socialist fantasyland where under the heel of dictators all would be perfect. Venezuela is one of the modern examples of where such thinking eventually leads.

 

 

Let’s imagine the United States after it has adopted the most easily recognized ideas which are favorites of the college educated elitists, not the professors, even though they are the purveyors of these concepts. We’ll use what the protesting students do, the ones who decide who is permitted to speak and what any speaker may present on their campuses. They proclaim that government must provide free education to all at all levels for as long as or at any point in time or point in their lives which people may desire, not require, simply desire. Further, all people, regardless of quality of their health, preexisting conditions, level of exercise, diet, weight or other physical, mental and psychological conditions should be granted equal coverage. The government must provide all citizens with a livable wage. Further, anybody within the borders should be granted citizenship. Everyone who desires to come to the United States should be granted entrance and citizenship because all people are equal and must be respected and given equal rights and treatment despite place of birth. The wealthy must be made to provide to pay sufficient taxes even if it means taking part of their wealth to provide government services which the people are entitled to as citizens. The people should be educated to understand and accept these concepts and the rest of the ideals of proper governance which includes freedom of gender identification, equal treatment of all sexual preferences, equal treatment of all people regardless of gender, identity, race, sexual preferences, nation of origin and a lengthy list of other identifiers as identifiers are evil and must be erased. When asked exactly how the society, actually the government, is supposed to afford these benefits and their reply will always be the same mantra, tax the rich, the wealthy will pay for it. What they refuse to understand is that in such a society there would be no wealthy as they would either leave for someplace where sanity ruled instead of feel good leftists or would have lost their wealth and joined the poor. Such a social arrangement for building a nation would result in a failed state where the average norm would be people taking courses, even if they had to take basket weaving, or simply party or enjoy long walks on the beach or through the park and collect their living wage as anything else would be punished with an unaffordable tax.

 

In order to collect sufficient funds to provide these benefits, the government would have to tax any income over the livable wage at near, if not above, 99%. Simply defined, if the living wage was set at thirty-thousand dollars a year, then with the above mention 99% tax on any income earned above that rate would have somebody earning thirty-five-thousand dollars a year would end up having a mere fifty dollars additional over those who settled for the livable wage. That begs the question, why bother working for a nominal wage when you would only receive a penny per dollar above the livable wage earned. Well, perhaps if you earned enough it would be different. What if you earned $250,000.oo? Well you would end up with $2,200.oo more than the livable wage. Now realize how much you would need to work as most people making a quarter of a million dollars put in over sixty hours a week at the office and another thirty at home and spend much of their free time thinking work. Then ask if a life of near constant working is really worth just over two thousand dollars or would the idea of taking courses or simply chilling with friends and take the livable wage be better. How bad could the livable wage life be compared to working your guts out for an additional two thousand dollars? The pull to avoid a punishing taxation and simply go with the majority would eventually result in the end of wealth as we know it. Additionally, if the livable wage proved not to provide sufficient life enjoyment and with likely the majority of the society collecting the livable wage, then it is likely that within a relatively short period of time they would vote to increase the livable wage. Politicians would place their jobs on that promise as they would not care as their salaries would either be tax exempt or sufficiently high such that their lives would be very comfortable, after all, they simply need to vote to increase the livable wage and also to raise their own salary.

 

Once again, look to Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela and the Soviet Union and the same thing becomes obvious to any discerning observer, they all have failed miserably. What makes this even more distressing is that Venezuela was a profitable nation with a capitalist economy until they elected a feel good socialist who decided that elections needed adjusting. He basically became President for life and he kept enacting more and more social safety net programs until Venezuela became a socialist utopia until the oil revenue could no longer support the social spending when the price of oil dropped as the United States discovered the means of retrieving shale oil through fracking. This led to Saudi Arabia to open up their spigots forcing the price of oil to the point where fracking was no longer profitable. This also placed pressure on Iran whose oil is of a lesser degree as it is very thick and needs more processing thus requiring more expense to process thus making their profit margin require a higher price than the result from the Saudi Arabian price pressure to a low level. Russia also has run into problems with the lowered price of oil which has proven that heavy social spending or other considerations can make a lower price for crude oil economically ruinous which has been the weapon used by the Saudis for years. The problem for Venezuela was more spending than lowered oil price; the oil price simple exacerbated their situation.

 

There is a reason why socialism will always fail while capitalism will usually work provided government spending is kept in check. The founding fathers chose an entrepreneurial based society for a reason, human instincts. There is one disposition in human behavior which can be counted upon in near all situations regardless of the governance, greed. Yes, being greedy is considered a negative personality trait but if we are honest, we will almost all admit that given no punishment for acting greedy, we will be greedy. Given a choice between a regular hamburger or a double hamburger for the same price, face it; we will most likely take the double burger. Make that three scoops of ice cream versus four scoops of ice cream for the same price? Four scoops, right? Let’s make it even easier, you are offered two jobs, both requiring you to clean up a football field which are across the street from one another with the one on the north side paying twenty dollars an hour and the one on the south side paying fifteen dollars an hour and both allowing you five hours of payment no matter how long you take, which job would you take and you can only do one or the other. Obvious, you take the north for the extra twenty-five dollars. Why these seemingly stupid questions, you ask? Well, capitalism counts on people being greedy, well, not exactly greedy but willing to work harder to gain additional wealth. Sure there are those who like me prefer a job which was interesting but when I worked on commission I worked far more diligently and faster than when I was paid simply by the hour. Perhaps that is why when department stores paid their salespeople by commission the service was so good and when they switched to hourly rate the service disappeared and, if you were fortunate, you could find a cashier to take your money. When my team of roofers were paid by the hour it took half a day to roof one townhouse but when our job paid by the length of roof we completed we managed to finish three townhomes by lunchtime, remarkable, right? That is called the capitalism effect.

 

Now let’s look at a socialist utopia where you are guaranteed a livable wage which would be relatively generous. Additionally, healthcare is free so you do not need a job to be covered. Housing is fixed at an affordable rate and there are price controls on food, vehicles, and other niceties. Entertainment is inexpensive or free. Education is free for all levels and you can remain in school taking courses all your life and even the dorm room is free as is the cafeteria. Most jobs are likely to be employing people from foreign countries as they would be willing to work for a wage as other costs in such a society make doing so easier to send money home to their families but these people work for a few years, make what their needs were back home and leave. Most of the citizens simply take the livable wage, stay in school and live a carefree life. Now let’s add one last item to the mix; anybody is permitted to enter the country and become a citizen simply by requesting such. Now how long will such a nation survive? Decades, years, months, weeks, until the first million people arrive? Face it, such a nation is doomed from the onset and there is no way around it even if there are oil wells as far as the eye can see. Even the oil sheikdoms limit their wealth and generosity to the indigenous peoples and guard citizenship for the precious fortune it is for their people who never need toil if they choose not to and foreign workers are brought in to do everything. Imagine if they allowed for open citizenship for just a week. Their ability to afford to continue their generosity would vanish and the goose that was laying the golden oil eggs would no longer be capable of supporting the expanded population as everyone who could get there, would get there and take the free income for life or for as long as it lasted. There can be no open border socialist utopia and even with a closed border it eventually will collapse, even Kuwait which has the luxury of an oil well for every ten people or something ridiculously close. Without near endless supply of wealth, the sole means of running a nation successfully is to take as much advantage of the one constant, greed. Using greed to power the country is far more successful than using the country to satisfy greed.

 

Beyond the Cusp