From Stone Soup to entitlement gruel
Fears that the Obama administration will impose a socialist regime on America are all over the place. As the stock market flounders, the funeral dirge for the free market system grows louder.
Yet, most everyone seems to be lining up for a taste of stimulus cash.
How did America, whose unique economic system transformed ideas into the most powerful economic engine the world has ever known, wind up here?
How did the self-reliance that forged a new kind of civilization out of wilderness morph into a “where’s mine” attitude?
Why does a significant portion of the population expect and demand that the government to protect us from ourselves and fulfill our every need?
Perhaps some of the current economic heartburn is part of the long overdue hangover from the excesses of the New Deal and price controls imposed during World War II.
Those strange times tied pensions and health care to employment. As the government grappled with distortions of normal economic forces resulting from a national emergency, there was little time or inclination to worry about the long term unintended consequences of polices spawned by the world’s flirtation with socialism in the 30’s.
Overdue fallout from the Great Society could also be a culprit.
Had that scheme worked as advertised, it should be out of business by now. Wasn’t Head Start intended to give economically deprived children a leg up so they could compete academically and take part in the American Dream? If that was the case, why is it still going strong? Shouldn’t the early generations whose academic playing field was leveled by Head Start have become parents who are willing and able to provide necessary intellectual stimulation for their own children?
Instead, it seems like each year there are more kids, at all socioeconomic levels, who need extra help just to keep up in school.
Maybe the cause for hand outedness(HO)is closer to home. It may simply be a manifestation of heightened expectations brought about by the excellent standard of living that most Americans now take for granted.
Or is it just the desire to have some part of the huge sums we pay in tax used for something that affects our daily lives?
Public schools are wonderful, in theory. As America grew westward, settlers pooled their resources to build schools, hire teachers and bring civilization, as they defined it, to the frontier.
Somewhere along the way, parents abdicated responsibility for instilling cultural values into their children to the state as the public schools took on the responsibility of teaching far more than reading, writing and ’rithmitic.
Americans have big hearts and are generous to those in need. Long before there were departments of social services, there were local churches to help the unfortunate.
The local pastor or parish priest knew who was truly in need and identified the malingerers so that help got to where it was truly needed.
Now, in addition to churches and other philanthropic organizations, we have governmental bureaucracies. Instead of providing a safety net to help people through a bad patch, governmental welfare organizations ensnarl those down on their luck into bureaucratic mazes that offer higher levels of “service” in return for absolute dependence.
Much good has come out of these programs, but the expectation bar has risen higher and higher. In spite of a bewildering maze of government bureaucracies, more and more people “Fall through the cracks.” After paying their taxes, Americans open their wallets to help charities and causes they support. Will that continue as tax rates rise and income falls?
The stimulus packages are billed as one time measures to deal with what is being hyped as a crisis, yet they keep on coming.
Each time the government steps in to “fix” a problem, the light of the free market and personal liberty dims. Are our current woes dire enough to justify the remedies? It’s hard to tell. A certain outcome will be greater government involvement, and control in our all aspects of our lives.
At the end of the day, will we still freely toss our portion into the pot for the good of all, or after it is all taken away from us hold out our bowls and ask “Please, Sir, may I have some more?”
4 comments:
Sandie's post is an excellent commentary on the current situation and how we got here. The thing to do now is to prepare for the great fall that appears ever more inevitable. I would be very surprised if we are in the middle of a recession rather than the start of a depression - perhaps a worse depression than the one we had in the 30's. The economic indicators are far worse now than they were then. In the 30's the US was lending money to other countries, and now our government and our country is indebted to the Chinese and others who may not care too much for us. Sure there's a certain interdependency. The Chinese need us to be able to buy their goods. But what happens when and if the rats start jumping off the sinking ship? Then the slide becomes a free fall. What trigger point could set off a total collapse? Swine flu? Terrorist attack? Natural disaster? We're potentially more vulnerable now than we've been since the Cuban missile crisis when the advice "duck and cover" was the best our government had to offer. All they are offering now is hyper inflation and permanent indebtedness for our children.
It almost appears that the market is being manipulated to deliver a rocky slide, rather than a precipitous crash. Just when things start to reach the panic mode, some 'good news' will leak out to halt the slide. We should remember that the Citibank CEO who said they made money the first two months of the year, sent a similar internal memo back in September telling employees the company was very strong and secure and a pillar of the financial community. The stock was 35 then and it's a penny stock now, that by all rights should be de-listed. Can we really trust those internal memos?
There is all sorts of international economic news that is not making it to our TV screens such as The World Bank warning that the world economy will shrink for the first time since World War II and that industrial production will plunge a staggering 15% - a global depression reminiscent of the 1930s.
The Asian Development Bank reported that more than $50 trillion in invested wealth vanished into thin air last year.
Toyota has made money every year since their inception including the year that 2 atom bombs were dropped on the only market they served at that time - and in 2008 they lost money for the first time in history. What does that say about current conditions?
What are the roots of this problem? Perhaps it's when our linear growth went exponential after Nixon took us off the gold standard. Does it matter? When unsustainable exponential curves adjust, it's not pretty.
I believe that the prudent thing for intelligent, rational people is to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. Civil unrest is inevitable if the system collapses. Buy a year's supply of food and be prepared to defend it. If it turns out it's not needed, you can eat it or donate it to charity.
The gene pool needs a good dose of chlorine and it looks like it's coming! Be prepared.
Let's say the bottom falls out. What else can we do? How can we prepare as a community? This is a topic our elected officials should be considering now before it's too late. I remember signing up as a Den leader for a bunch of Cub Scouts and my predecessor told me to remember that a bad plan was always better than no plan!
And finally, in addition to preparing to feed and protect our families, what else can we as individuals do? I think we need to send a strong and powerful message to our elected officials by going down to our local voter registration boards and changing our registrations from Democrat or Republican to Independent. Clearly they aren't listening to us, and we need to get their attention fast before it's too late.
Is everyone aware of "We Surround Them Friday!)
If not go to below link.
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/21018/
As the child of an immigrant socialist parent, I see nothing wrong with the concept of socialism except that it runs counter to the American tradition and mind-set. Socialism is NOT a bad word or necessarily a bad form of government. Medicare, Social Security, child health care are forms of socialism that most Americans embrace -- they encode the principle that we are all on the same life raft and have obligations to one another: my success can help someone less fortunate. From my perspective, the combined forces of run-amok capitalism (remember "all the traffic will bear"?), me-first, corporate and individual greed, as well as consumer gullibility are responsible for the mess we are in. Those of us who do not worship the Almighty dollar and are not part of the consumer culture (buy, buy, buy, keep up with the Joneses, conflate want with need)and stay true to the values of self-reliance will come out the other side of this mess intact. And if my children, who are unfortunately part of the me generation (need a muscle car, iPod, Blackberry, flat screen TV, etc.) are poorer as a result of their consumer habits and have to pay off some of the debt that their excesses helped bring on, so be it. When living is too easy, and comes without some struggle, the days become flat and devalued.
Wasn't it Margaret Thatcher who said something to the effect that the problem with Socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money?
I work with people overseas including a friend in Ukraine who grew up under the Soviet system. He told me stories of workers sitting under the trees by the side of the field goofing off all day because they were going to be paid the same regardless of what they did. As a result everyone suffered from food shortages. That was Communism and it failed miserably. Socialism is the intermediate step.
It seems to me that Socialism does indeed make all of us equal (except the requisite elites), by dragging everyone down to the same level, instead of offering an opportunity for people to lift themselves up and better their condition.
In Socialist Europe when they see a big house on a hill, they want to burn it down so everyone is equal. In America when you see a big house on a hill, you want to work hard so you can have one just like it. One approach breeds destruction and poverty, the other breeds advancement and prosperity. I would argue that the American approach, though imperfect, is better.
There is no question that certain socialist 'safety blankets' are a good thing for society, but they quickly turn into overburdened, unsustainable, entitlements.
There is much truth when Linda says, "When living is too easy, and comes without some struggle, the days become flat and devalued.", but is it really necessary for everyone to be poor? What's wrong with struggling to achieve success and material goods that make life better for everyone? Should we all go back to living in caves around a campfire?
We tend to forget that the poorest Americans live far better than most of the rest of the world. A rising tide floats all boats. The American system was working just fine till government got too big. Now we're going to "tax the rich, feed the poor, till there are no rich no more." (1971 - Ten Years After) I.e., till we're all poor.
No, the problem is not American capitalism. The problem is stupid voters who reelect greedy, incompetent representatives every year who may have begun with good intentions, but quickly become pawns of special interests. Since we can't trust people to always make good voting decisions, the only solution is to impose term limits on our representatives to limit the amount of damage they can do. Representative democracy isn't perfect, but it's better than the next best alternative.
Register as Independents, throw out the old bums and put in new idealists with a mandate to amend the Constitution and impose term limits, before they become the new bums.
Next, pay for the Stimulus program by requiring every federal government agency to cut its budget by 15% or throw out the top 15% of the highest paid employees. If those people are so smart, put them to work in the private sector creating wealth instead of redistributing it.
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