Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label socialism. Show all posts

Sunday, January 11, 2015

What if Everyone Was on Welfare?


When my son was a Missionary in Boston, Massachusetts, he spent 2 years contacting and teaching people about the Mormon Church. He had the opportunity to work with many people in the Boston Housing Projects. 

While there, he noticed a peculiar thing; each of the project buildings housed hundreds of families and yet, building after building had no one that held a job. Everyone lived of welfare, food stamps, disability, or some other form of assistance. 

The most ironic discovery was that neighbors would meet together to teach other residents how to best utilize the welfare system to receive as much as possible.

So, the questions arises, What if everyone was on welfare?

Except for a few altruistic individuals who have to be productive to remain sane:
  • There would be no one would grow any food.
  • There would be no one to make food.
  • There would be no one to build homes.
  • There would be no one to sell food.
  • There would be no one to rent an apartment from.
  • There would be no one to sell you a home.
  • There would be no one to teach our children.
  • There would be no taxes for the Government to re-distribute.
  • There would be no convenience stores to rob.

The only remaining option would be for the Government to step in and assign everyone a task so that;
  • Food would be produced.
  • Food would be processed.
  • Food would be sold.
  • Homes and apartments would be sold and rented.
  • There would be taxes to re-distribute.
  • There would be convenience stores to rob.

Question: Which country today does this sound like?
  1. Russia
  2. China
  3. Cuba
  4. All of the above
Reminds me of a story in the Reader's Digest years ago.

“In our friendly neighbor city of St. Augustine, (Florida), great flocks of sea gulls are starving amid plenty. Fishing is still good, but the gulls don’t know how to fish. For generations they have depended on the shrimp fleet to toss them scraps from the nets. Now the fleet has moved. …

“The shrimpers had created a Welfare State for the … sea gulls. The big birds never bothered to learn how to fish for themselves and they never taught their children to fish. Instead they led their little ones to the shrimp nets.

“Now the sea gulls, the fine free birds that almost symbolize liberty itself, are starving to death because they gave in to the ‘something for nothing’ lure! They sacrificed their independence for a hand-out.

“A lot of people are like that, too. They see nothing wrong in picking delectable scraps from the tax nets of the U.S. Government’s ‘shrimp fleet.’ But what will happen when the Government runs out of goods? What about our children of generations to come?

“Let’s not be gullible gulls. We … must preserve our talents of self-sufficiency, our genius for creating things for ourselves, our sense of thrift and our true love of independence.” (“Fable of the Gullible Gull,”Reader’s Digest, Oct. 1950, p. 32.)

Courtesy of RI Future
Lest you think the St Augustine story is an anomaly, another article a few years ago from Houma, Louisiana, explains how another group of these Welfare Gulls move from one gravy train to another:

Gulls head inland as spill curbs easy meals

HOUMA — In his four decades of business on the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, Mike Voisin says he’s never seen a seagull at Motivatit Seafood’s Palm Avenue oyster-processing plant. But today they’re taking over.

The scavenging gulls are on the plant’s roof and in the plant’s trucks, which carry discarded oyster shells from the high-pressure shucking operation. They ride a conveyor belt carrying shucking remains out of the plant while pecking hungrily at the barnacled shells.

They’ve been scavenging at his oyster shells for the last month.

“It’s the darnedest thing because we’ve never seen a seagull here since, well, I don’t even remember,” Voisin said. “Not in the 40 years I’ve been here. They must be really hungry.”

Voisin said he believes closures of bayou seafood-processing plants and the docking of commercial-fishing vessels that would normally attract flocks of hungry gulls have sent them elsewhere for their meals.

Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the Audubon Society’s Louisiana Coastal Initiative, said she has received reports of more and more gulls heading inland, prowling around restaurants where they haven’t been seen before.

“I’ve heard a lot from locals,” Driscoll said. “There’s a sense that the gulls may be hungry because they basically had a buffet, and now it’s no longer there.”

Photo courtesy of  Daily Mail.com
Welfare parasites begin to think that anything the want is theirs, as this lady in South Shields, England found out recently. 

So, What if everyone was on welfare?

Now you know.

Friday, October 10, 2014

It's Not Capitalism, It's Cronyism
















Many of you may have been wondering why the progressives have such a disdain for capitalism. It is maligned with such quips as:
  • You didn't build that!
  • Greedy Capitalist Pig.
  • The Decade of Greed.
  • Rich Republican donors.
  • The Koch brothers are buying America.
In his movie, "Capitalism, A Love Story" Michael Moore ended with the quote, "Capitalism is an evil, and you cannot regulate evil. You have to eliminate it and replace it with something that is good for all people and that something is democracy." Actually he doesn't know what he is talking about. Capitalism is an economic system, Democracy is a form of government. We can't have an economic system with out a government and vice versa.

Capitalism, as espoused first by Adam Smith, is simply a system where the producer profits from their productivity and efforts. If I spend the time to gather resources, create a product or service someone else deems of value, and I sell it to them for more than the cost to produce, I realize a profit in the difference between my expenses and the sales price. 
  • If I price the items for less that the cost to produce, I loose money and go out of business.
  • If I price the items too high, someone else emerges to sell it for less, and I loose business.
  • If I create items that no one wants or needs, no one purchases them and I go out of business.
Smith explained that these "natural laws" of business would keep capitalism in check and provide the greatest good for the society. Supply and demand as well as competition keep the playing field balanced.

Michael Moore and other elitists celebrities do this all the time with their work, but refuse to acknowledge they are capitalists. Mr Moore finances a movie or documentary such as "Capitalism, A Love Story". He hires others to help him film and distribute the product, sells it to the public, and then he keeps the difference between the cost of the film and the revenue generated, his profit. He profits handsomely from the very system he maligns. It grossed over $14 Million dollars.

So whether you are; 1) a sole proprietor who makes and sells products or services, 2) an employer who hires other people to help with the production and distribution of the products or services, or 3) an employee who works for a company to produce products or services where you are paid for your productivity, you are a capitalist.

There is a moral obligation with capitalism to share proportionally the profits with those who helped to create them; but competition from other companies selling at a lower price or hiring away employees for a better wage, keeps employers looking out for the welfare of those working for them.

So, what has gone wrong? It is not capitalism that has failed, it is the introduction of cronyism.

Cronyism is profiting from our relationships with others. It has nothing to do with our productivity or efforts. We are dependent on whether or not we make our benefactor happy. This is how Socialism, Communism, and Monarchys survive.

Cronyism was the name of the game in the Middle Ages in Europe. The kings were accepted by the people as the Divinely appointed rulers of the country. Kings owned everything, including the people. They divvied out property and power to the nobility, comprised mostly of those who helped them to gain power. As long as the nobility fulfilled the wishes of the king, they retained their property and power, regardless of their productivity. One false step could forfeit, for them and their posterity, any claim to the prestige they enjoyed and it would be given to another. "Game of Thrones" ring a bell?

It has often been at play in the politics of the Untied States. Every time there is a newly elected President, he brings with him a gaggle of supporters to whom he owes his office. In gratitude, he bestows appointments, offices, and powers to help him govern the country. There are justifiable reasons for bringing along your supporters. A new President often brings a new focus, new direction or new ideology to the country. It is important for his success to surround himself with those who share his vision. This is wise leadership. But when he rewards donors with positions they are neither qualified nor capable of handling, it is cronyism.

Today our country is rife with Cronyism and its companion, incompetence. A few examples to accentuate the point.

President Obama appointed the following people to positions in the government:
  • Timothy Geithner - Nominated for Secretary of the Treasury failed to properly pay his taxes from 2001-2004. A 2006 audit by the IRS revealed the error, but Geithner didn't pay the back taxes until he was nominated for the Cabinet position. Was he really qualified to hold this position?
  • Tom Daschle - Nominated for Secretary of Health and Human Services but it seemed the former Senate Majority Leader had problems doing his taxes. He used a donated car and driver for 2 years without reporting the "income" to Uncle Sam. Fortunately, he declined the appointment when this information was made public.
  • The average government employee spend up to 1/2 of their day at work watching porn or facebooking. The greater their salary, the more time spent surfing.
In an article entitled, "From Bad to Worse: US Taxpayers Keep Losing Money on Solyndra", it tells the story of how a company that was in financial trouble received over $537 Million dollars for research and development. In less that 2 years, the company folded and only about $27 Million of the $500 Million was projected to be repaid to the American People. The public has no idea where the rest of the money went.

Speaking of energy companies, "Obama's Green Energy Bets Keep Coming Up Short", lists 19 energy companies with government loans and their status as of a year ago.



















Over 10 Billion dollars of American Taxpayer's money that was risked and most of it lost. Again, where did the money go? The most popular way to thank donors and sponsors is to finance their failing companies so they can siphon off enough for retirement while the ship sinks.

That is the beauty of Cronyism. Welcome to America.


Photos courtesy of:
http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2012/11/10/

http://www.rpc.senate.gov/policy-papers/obamas-green-energy-bets-keep-coming-up-short_update