h/t Clive
Related:
The following tale is likely apocryphal but still communicates an important life lesson:
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”.. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A … (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.
To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.
These are possibly the 5 best points you’ll ever read and all are applicable to this experiment:
- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
- What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
- The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
- You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
- When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
Received via e-mail
When will Atlas shrug?
Or should I have asked, “Who is John Galt?”
What Professor? What college? If this is true it needs to be told far and wide. I can see my 12a Government teacher doing this, as we were all leftists to some extent and he tried to give the contrary argument.
In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”
I think the key point is that the students had never been exposed to any alternative ideas. His ‘liberation’ of students money might be the first time they had been exposed to the reality of redistribution. If high school curriculum included a course with serious discussion and debate of Smith, Mills, Locke, Milton Friedman and others then the essays may have yielded different results.
BTW, the characterization of the younger generational as uniquely greedy and entitiled is pretty funny. Their more generous and responsible elders are leaving them with:
15 Trillion in federal debt + state debt + trillions in unfunded liabilities from Social Security, Medicare and government employee pensions.
If that isn’t enough, any chance that future generations could pay for these debts through economic growth is running into an impenetrable obstacle course of regulation, NIMBYism, and government crony capitalism/corruption that has built up during previous generations.
Obamba’s New America is going to find allot more OWS gangs sitting in front of banks with their hands out this summer 2012.
Sooner or later it’s going to boil over.
Of course if we are really lucky China might send back all the real jobs as a goodwill gesture so that the millions of illiterate people, who can’t read, write or stay sober can have jobs too.
Isn’t crony capitalism also a form of socialism?
“Money dominates politics, distorting free markets and endangering democracy. “As a result,” Stockman says, “we have neither capitalism nor democracy. We have crony capitalism.”
Stockman shares details on how the courtship of politics and high finance have turned our economy into a private club that rewards the super-rich and corporations, leaving average Americans wondering how it could happen and who’s really in charge.
“We now have an entitled class of Wall Street financiers and of corporate CEOs who believe the government is there to do… whatever it takes in order to keep the game going and their stock price moving upward,” Stockman tells Moyers.”
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2012/01/crony-capitalism-and-entitled-class-of.html
Smart guy. Hes exposing the Robin Hood Gambit.
Taking from the rich to give to the poor is okay until their is no rich anymore. Than who is to give to the poor who are now used to this free bounty?
Ask yourself what Robins take was?
Good points,Robert. Now see that this is E-mailed to all parties at the Government/First Nations Summit about to start in Ottawa.
Because you KNOW that some people will expect bigger handouts.
As good as this sounds, its an email that’s made the rounds over the years and turns out its complete bullshit.
“Because you KNOW that some people will expect bigger handouts.”
…..Or you will be labelled a racist. Black, Brown, Aboriginal or Quebecer, if one gets more than the other you’re a racist to the others. If all received equal entitlements you’re not culturally sensitive to individual cultural needs and therefore a racist.
It’s a catch 22 regardless, that’s why they teach university students that all white people are born racist and not others, it cuts to the chase and keeps the status quo clear before they hit the workforce.
According to The Atlantic Wire, 48% of the World’s 1% are Americans.
American University students are almost undoubtedly part of the World’s One Percenters, so how much are they willing to send to Haiti to close the gap?
@ LC Bennett
One major difference is that the older generation paid into all the derived benefits and were assured it was self sustaining.It probably was until 42 000 factories were outsourced, leaving untold millions of former tax contributers as liabilities to the system and a decimated tax base that was unable to maintain a suddenly unaffordable, unfunded welfare state. The changes that should have come 20 years ago are only coming about now, with baby steps by people like Chris Christy.
OK, peter j, now that we know that the benefits are not self-sustaining…who should pay the bill? Those who will derive no benefit or those who were lied to?
I see it as the Nigerian Bank Scam – an advance-fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain. Sure the older generation was fooled by politicians and economists but why should the young be the patsies who gets stuck with the bill for other peoples bad decisions?
There’s naught for it! We all pay for the sins of our fathers.
I’m thinking the future will more or less resemble “Every man for himself”. The young will feel little loyalty to those who have sold them into serfdom.
Fundamentally, this is educational failure.
1) the people who set the curriculum don’t have the right priorities, or have an agenda against individual freedom and rights.
2) parents are too disengaged (for numerous reasons) to either deprogram their kids, or insist on a more balanced and complete education
3) we have permitted the “takers” to infiltrate and eventually totally control the education system.
That’s why I’m stoking up on land mines and concertina wire.
And at the end of the day people always get the government they deserve. Glad I’m old.
Well I have no kids to support me in my old age…..I guess I’m just like everybody else.
“Fundamentally, this is educational failure.
1) the people who set the curriculum don’t have the right priorities, or have an agenda against individual freedom and rights.”
I think in their minds this is educational success.
Well bs detector, you’re obviously not very good at it because the story about the redistribution of grades is NOT BS at all.
First of all, the poster admitted that’s it’s likely “apocryphal”: you might want to look that up. It’s also a parable: look that up too.
If I’d been in that class, I’d have asked to students to count the cash/coins they were carrying. I’d have written the amounts on the board and found the average/mean amount. Then I’d have told the students that, re the “social justice” redistribution agenda of Obama and the OWS, each person with more than the average amount would be required to give each person with less than the average amount enough of their “excess” money until everyone had the same amount.
I think this hands-on parable, demonstrating the total unfairness of “social justice” and redistribution, might have resonated with at least some of these brainwashed and non-independent-thinking students.
By some grace—maybe of God—I had an epiphany when I was about 19, many decades ago and before I had to pay taxes. I was idly thinking one day. The thought? “I really don’t have to worry about problems in my life because if any are really serious, the government will pay and solve my problems.” To this day, I’m not a very financially smart person. However, a voice quite clearly let me know, on the spot and quite unbidden by me: “What a ridiculous idea. How can the government possibly do that for everyone?” I think even before that—again by some grace—I just wasn’t one for buying the socialist scam that virtually all my university friends did—and still do. (Actually, re our friendships and me, my conservative outlook has been a real barrier to my lefty friends of yore practising the so-called “tolerance, diversity, and inclusiveness” to which they all claim to adhere. When we communicate, we talk about things other than politics and social issues. Isn’t utopia grand?)
@ LC Bennett
OK, peter j, now that we know that the benefits are not self-sustaining…who should pay the bill?
You hit the saddest part. The Boomers children will do a lot of inheriting but they better spend it wisely. Everyone else is on their own and we all know the gravy train will not come back. Freedom 55 is now freedom 80. I can see all benefits clawed back incrimentally until goverment at all levels live within their means. They are the biggest problem in that they promise everything to everyone in order to get elected with no concern to the mess they are creating for the next candidate. I believe that over the next decade you will see more Chris Christy’s and inflexible unions that killed the golden goose will disappear, even for civil service. The downside is that there will be blood in the streets as millions that have taken all entitlements for granted will see a social safety net in tatters with only soup kitchens remaining. Of course they will blame everyone except the governments that caused the mess and continue to vote for whoever promises the best freebees. So, who should pay the bills ? The same governments that created them. It will be painful but I believe there is little choice. Could take awhile and it won’t be under Obama or California thinking. The alternative is Greece.
…but why should the young be the patsies who gets stuck with the bill for other peoples bad decisions?
Hear the sense of entitlement? He’s entitled to receive the benefits of modern life, just none of the liabilities.
Typical spoiled kid.
Obama keeps raising the ceiling.
Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling:
Let’s say, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer
backup in your neighborhood….and your home has sewage all the way up
to your ceilings.
What do you think you should do ……
Raise the ceilings, or pump out the shit?
No, fiddle, what I an concerned about is that the previous generations provided unsustainable benefits for themselves by promising the earnings/income taxes of future generations…without their consent. This is wrong even if done with the best of intentions.
The difficulty with this is, that those that should pay attention, won’t.
If the basics of economy are not taught in school, the demise of the American civilisation is close at hand.
The free enterprise will move where it can make money, perhaps even to Africa.
This is truly bizarre.
In high school and then technology institute in a socialist country run by communists, they taught that you have to invest, produce and sell. If things work out you have a profit. Everybody gets paid from the difference between the cost and the income. I’m talking communists.
Now, you grow in a generally free enterprise country, progressively going communist and they seem to teach, if they teach anything useful at all, going opposite way.
How is it that the education system’s intention is to destroy, instead of encourage the energy of the new generation of people?
The premise of public education is that you get the government to force others to pay for your child’s education (which is now mostly 12+ years of day care and indoctrination). You can talk about “reforming the system” but decades of hypocrisy and neglect have corrupted the “system” to the point of irreparable sloth and entitlement. Until “conservatives” reconcile the notion that they say that they don’t want government running 95% of their lives but they are adamant that government should run 75% of their lives, it will only get worse.
“the previous generations provided unsustainable benefits for themselves”
They only accepted what was offered to them either through Unions or government to set the living standard. No one back then, would in their wildest dreams believe we would make China rich in order to destroy our own lives and futures.The USA was the economic engine of the world and no one had any doubt it would continue to be. Hindsight is 20/20. To blame the past generation for what is happening now is just sour grapes.
Ahh, isn’t that attitude a “let then eat cake” attitude? That’s very similar to the Too Big to Fail reasoning of the corporate bailouts – oops, sorry we messed up but give us other peoples money or we’re all screwed”. Unfortunately, like the French Revolution, things will end badly. Not guillotine bad but inflation or hyperinflation bad. That always hits those on fixed incomes the hardest. Those benefits that “set the living standard” will be worth a fraction of their current value.
No, fiddle, what I an concerned about is that the previous generations provided unsustainable benefits for themselves by promising the earnings/income taxes of future generations…without their consent.
They also provided the benefits of modern living. Don’t see you complaining about that.
@ LC Bennett
Other than your fixation on things you can no longer have,and the gravy train you missed, what would be your solution to set things right ? What, if anything would make you happy !
It’s mind boggling.
We will stomp all over fascists and set them on fire, and run them out of town on a rail…but socialists? The schools crank them out like socialists.
Who is going to take care of YOU in your final years when you can’t do it yourself? This next generation coming up is a complete write off.
You’ll have to be more specific about the “benefits of modern living” that you are talking about, fiddle.
Peter – for the US – lower benefits, increase SS age, privatize Medicare, allow younger people to opt out of SS, renegotiate government pensions.
For Canada – We are fortunate that the debt/deficit of the federal government is manageable (some provinces, not so much, but people can and will move). I also don’t think CPP is in nearly as bad of shape as the US but considering increased life expectancy since its inception an age increase is appropriate. Universal health care, equalization payments and government pensions need to be reformed. Prevent universal daycare and universal pharamacare. Nix Green projects and carbon pricing.
@ Big Bad Jim
There was this movie that will turn into a documentary unless we get politicians with balls.
It’s called Soylent Green.
@ Big Bad Jim
There was this movie that will turn into a documentary unless we get politicians with b*lls.
It’s called Soylent Green.
one more : CPP contributions should be optional for people under 35? 40? Let the (mandatory or voluntary) CPP deductions go to personal pension accounts instead.
OOps thought it got caught in the spam filter.
LC Bennett, agree with you 100%. Pretty well the same thing I said @ 5:53 post
Oh, yes…stop pretending the older generations were more fiscally responsible or immune to the entitlement mentality.
Should throw in that my comments were looking through the USA filter. Private pensions still should be backed by some king of guarantee as the pension investors of Worldcom/Nortel/Lehman Bros and so many more have learned the hard way.
This professor is set to lose his job. You can’t say that stuff and not be a racist, can you?
“Oh, yes…stop pretending the older generations were more fiscally responsible or immune to the entitlement mentality”
Ok, so you hate the older generation. I give up.
Not sure what your problem is but I’ll bet it’s hard to pronounce.
You’ll have to be more specific about the “benefits of modern living” that you are talking about, fiddle.
Pretty much everything you see around you…that you don’t see it speaks volumes about your entitlement mentality.
LC Bennett, better get some specifics in there otherwise you are sounding like a “State of the Union Address” or a Dipper on the campaign trail. All talk, no details let alone action.
For the record, as a boomer, I entered into a contract with the government(s) that I would pay the taxes due and the premiums on these mandatory social programs on the promise I would get what is due me when I qualify. Hell, for half that time I worked two or three jobs to keep a young family warm, fed and clothed. Military is a way to serve your country but now a way to get rich. In my time pays were frozen twice for several years as an “example” of government getting serious but strangely the rent in the government housing still went up. And now a bunch of young occupiers and idealistic twerps tell me it’sall my fault? It was never me who voted Turdeau, Crouton or Martin. I’d admit I did vote Joe Who once. I’ve earned enough points so let me cash in my Airmiles and not screw with the older middle class minions by changing the rules of the game.
“Is the American Dream Now Over?”
If the attitude expressed by these students in these essays is the attitude of the generation that will take over, then I would say the freedom dream is over and the Marxist dream will take over.
If this is the attitude of the next generation, then I am also glad I am getting a little long in the tooth, but I feel sorry for my kids and grandkids.
but I feel sorry for my kids and grandkids.
Posted by: Ken (Kulak)
Why? Aren’t they wallowing in same public trough you spent a lifetime slurping out of? You’re not saying they actually had to get real jobs, are you?
Anarcho Capitalism (My Ideology)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho_capitalism
This Is Where The Remains Of A True Free Market Stands Now:
http://bitcoin.org/
http://www.operationbitcoin.org/wallst/
Maybe the other thing these kids need to do is stop watching youtube documentaries that openly promote socialism or other radical leftist ideologies.
And the other thing that needs to be done here is bringing back critical thinking skills and reading comprehension. But not in a public school setting, that model has failed horribly on all fronts. It either has to be done with small classrooms sizes like it was done in the late 19th to early 20th centuries or it could be done via homeschooling which has proven to be the most successful.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/public-schools-abolished.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Swl8frWSNEQ
Are The Good Times Really Over For Good?
bs detctor; The Email is BS if you are receiving govt money,its not if you are not.Remember,federal govt employies DONT PAy FEDERAL TAXES,provincial govt employies DONT PAY PROVINCIAL TAXES,municipal employies DONT PAY MUNICIPAL TAXES,and teachers DONT PAY SCHOOL TAXES.They are PAID with taxes.
foobert: Amen!
Walking on the fighting side of me could also be used.