Some stores still post this sign. At my age it still makes sense that people selling fragile antiques or other delicate objects should be able to make that stick with clumsy customers and unruly kids. With an avowed Socialist running for president of my country, it makes sense here too. There is not one example in history of a successful socialist economy. Why would the country with the most successful economic model in history buy this? Simple, the people who are breaking it aren’t buying it.
Let me start with a favorite issue that rich people like to sell, climate change. It’s owned by the media, in the affluent suburbs of America, in Hollywood, and by so-called intellectuals. Progressives they call themselves. It’s a feel good project, saving the planet. Statistics don’t justify the time and treasure they want to invest in this, but they keep changing the measurements to try to make it work. What does it impact? The US economy and the lives of the non-affluent with fewer manufacturing jobs and higher energy costs. Will it ever impact the lives of the people breaking it?, no. They will continue to increase their carbon footprints while they preach to the poor they break. Including your kids and grandkids who will grow up in a poorer country.
Then there’s the war on Wall Street. What does that mean? If I understand economics, Wall Street represents companies large and small in this country. It is the place they go to raise capital to create jobs. If you go to war on them do you not go to war on job creation? Of course you do, but in the theory of the Progressives the government takes up the slack. Really, the same government that created the housing problem and then shifted the blame to the bankers. Conveniently, we forget the great government insurance programs, Freddie, Fannie and the FHA was the sole reason any banker made a questionable mortgage. Then you had the government pounding on the banks to make minority mortgages. The same government that broke it didn’t buy it. You bought it with a big recession. Now you want to buy more of that with less job creation in the private sector and more and bigger government? If you do, you break it and you buy it.
Higher taxes and higher minimum wages. Progressives tell us it’s a zero sum game. They can take more from the rich, corporations, investors, and the middle class and give it to the less fortunate and nothing changes. We can raise minimum wages to $15 and hour and nothing changes. It’s not a zero sum game. Take more from corporations and small business and they raise prices and cut jobs. Take more from investors and they invest less. Raise wages and businesses raise prices, cut employees, and go out of business. If you want an example, look at WalMart. They raised wages voluntarily because the unions were at their heels and for public opinion and now they are closing 150 stores and eliminating the jobs that supported those stores. If you buy the zero sum game, you are breaking it, you own it for your kids and grandkids.
Education is a perfect example. If you accept the low test scores for our kids is money based, you own it. We spend more than almost all of the countries that outscore us on tests. When we pour money into schools nothing changes it gets worse. When we unionized teachers our problems began. See, you can’t get rid of bad teachers. And, you can’t tie their jobs to performance. They sell you the idea that it’s just more money to fix their incompetence. No, it’s getting rid of B.S. like Common Core where it’s 12 steps to solve a simple math problem and making teachers and administrators accountable for test scores and getting the unions our of education and taking the Federal Government with them. You buy the money is the problem answer and you are breaking it and buying it. Same with higher education. You believe that tuition costs should go up just like housing prices did before 2008, you deserve what you get. Free money from the government in the form of student loans and grants allow colleges to raise tuition prices. Without that, hundreds would be closing until they cut out the fat that free money allows. Colleges rival governments in inefficiency. And, it’s getting worse.
Then there’s the big one. If you believe attorneys should run the business of government, you broke it and it will never be fixed. Attorneys can’t run big law firms. Most are going broke. How we ever got to the idea that this is the right way to run government, by hiring attorneys to run it, is beyond me. You keep hiring them and you keep breaking it and you own it.
I could go on but I won’t. We are on the brink of taking this great country into the tank. Every one of us needs to do an assessment of our thought processes. What is more important to us, the future of our kids and grandkids or some high-sounding cause like diversity, climate change, taking care of our immigrants, etc. Companies succeed because they spend scare resources where they produce the greatest results. Countries fail(Greece), like cities(Detroit) because they don’t. We are a rich country, just like GM was a rich company, but eventually we exhaust resources if they are misspent.
You break it, you buy it.
