Clay Putnam, CGCS said: Sandy Clark, CGCS said: Dennis, what most people on this forum do not recognize, because they are not old enough, is a famous quote by the Soviet Premier, Nikita Kruschev. He said communism would never need to fire a single shot to take over America. He stated that we would be taken over from within. I think it was Stalin that used the phrase useful idiots when referring to the United States press. If you take the emotionalism out of the political argument and just review the beliefs, you will find very little difference from a socialist philosophy and what the current democrat party is preaching. We currently are into wealth redistribution as seen in Obamacare and every other program they are touting. The global warming issues are all tied up in wealth redistribution. We have done a great job internally of killing the American work ethic. Success must be punished while making everyone equal. Ruining the plans of those that had good healthcare to make it more fair for those that have none isn't the answer to solving the problem it is simply spreading the misery. We need to get back to challenging our country to succeed and we should have done that when revamping the health insurance system!
Great points, Sandy. There is a book titled "Why Nations Fail" by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. The book chronicles why nations have failed since the beginning of nation building and explains why seemingly indestructible nations collapse from within. The common denominator, always, is a lack of incentive. Each failed nation tries to either steal from its citizens or give everything to their citizens or both. To use your example, Sandy, the Soviet Union decentivized its citizens from creating, building, expanding, seeking higher education, and so on. The citizens were not allowed to own much, if any, land. Their earnings were distributed amongst the masses, they had no basic freedoms, the government gave the citizens their basic living needs such as food/water/shelter/transportation/communication/etc., etc at no cost. Squaller and poverty became the norm and the only people enjoying any kind of luxury were those leading the government. As is always the case, eventually the citizens figured "why bother expanding my business or getting a higher education or trying to better my situation because 3/4 of my earnings/land/possessions will be taken and the government will provide for me anyway" which resulted in a collapsed economy. Always.
The similarities path, that America is on, is staggering. If history is a precursor to things to come, America will fail within two generations unless something drastic occurs. Whatever that something is, it will be ugly and very possibly bloody. Currently approximately 40% of American citizens are on one form or another of government assistance and the number continues to rise. The only way the government can continue to pay for more and more public assistance is to take more and more from the earners. Eventually the air within the American creative machine will burst thus collapsing upon itself.
The saddest part of this is that the majority of the population is unaware that they are contributing to their own demise. Quite frankly, they are too stupid and lazy to know better. Politicians will continue to run campaigns based on "free stuff". The more people become hooked on government "free stuff" the less likely they will vote-out those who provide the "free stuff" and the downward spiral will continue.
Now for those of you who wish to challenge me on this topic (Mel), I will encourage you to read the book.
Additional reading here, http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2013/11/10/president-obama-clearly-never-worked-for-goldman-sachs/?partner=yahootix
Clay I don't so much disagree with your premise, there are parts of it I might agree with, and I'm answering before I read the book, but the one thing I probably disagree with is, I don't think it can be laid all on the back of the democratic party, or one person such as President Obama. If you look at much of his record, it seems that much of what he does would be more moderate, or even Bush like. Look at the military and conflicts, more often than not he has used force. When it comes to health care, for the most part, he isn't giving out health care for free, he requires people to pay for it, now the subsidies can be seen as handing out something for free, the Medicaid expansion is free, but is it really? I guess he could be accused of creating the ACA in hopes that it leads to a single-payer system. But those are my opinions which really aren't based on anything then what I seem to see and understand.
Would like to hear more about what you consider government assistance, quite honestly I think it is higher when you consider social security and eventually Medicare. But I also don't consider that a complete entitlement either. We certainly contribute to it, but typically we will get a bigger return than we invest. Could we achieve that return investing in our 401K's? Not the middle class, (not to say we shouldn't be investing in those as well.) But I consider government assistance also the subsidies given to corporations such as oil, don't know how you count them, but as Gov. Romney said "They are people". What about tax breaks in the tax code? I hear all the time about we have the highest tax rate for companies, but when the question is asked what is the effective tax rate, the amount corporations pay in, it is nowhere near the tax rate due to deductions they are allowed. Now I know the argument "that it will create jobs" Does it really? So do food stamps, grocery stores have to hire people to serve those that are spending them, they wouldn't be spending that money if they didn't have the food stamps. What would the farmers do with all the crops they grow if people weren't buying as much with their food stamps? What about farm subsidies, (which it seems many in congress are farmers), government assistance, how much farm subsidies go to big corporate farms? I heard one time we set up tax deductions and subsides to businesses because it will spur job growth, but in most cases it doesn't and we legislate because it is a feel good measure. So if you are wanting to cut back on government assistance let's cut back on all of it, although this would probably damage the economy so bad, but I could see where this is leading to our down fall all the handouts as many call them. Would like to see more debate on what might be the answer. One thing is for sure, the rich and poor are all in this together.
I see it from the other side as the few with large sums of money try to get the uneducated on the right to reject some of the "free" stuff for these peoples benefit. All the while they encourage laws that hurt the middle class and the more. (Right to work and union issues mostly, not that I am big on unions, they have their issues as well).
I don't think the education issue is the same as the Soviet Union went, as it is well known that to achieve in most cases you have to have an education here in the states. Part of that is the loss of many manufacturing jobs. We have become more of a service industry in my opinion, look at even our high tech jobs mostly deal with IT, a service industry.
Of course this is a bigger issue than one post can really discuss.
Mel