Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Bernie Sanders has just announced an amendment which would hand over vast quantities of free money to ordinary consumers. My question – how does Bernie reconcile handing people free money with his opposition to climate wrecking consumerism?
Bernie Sanders says he is opposed to capitalist excess, yet at the same time he supports a universal basic income, a recipe for government funding of consumerist excess.
There is a solution to this dilemma which avoids planet wrecking consumerist excess. If the value of the US dollar drops to zero, as happened with the Venezuelan Bolivar when the government started looting the economy to fund unsustainable social programmes, then Bernie gets to hand out free money which cannot actually be used to purchase anything.
Bernie Sanders is not a deep-thinker and so can say anything he likes on the moment and does not need to spend time or effort reconciling the irreconcilable. Bernie loves free money for everyone because he know it is not his own money that he is wasting. All Socialists approve of that principle. It leads to the situation eventually where the government pretends to pay people and people pretend to work (frequently from bed).
This is why Socialism is fundamentally evil. You can’t give free stuff to one group of people without taking stuff from another. Purposeful inflation, which seems to be what the left wants, takes stuff from everyone and is like voter fraud that benefits the few as it harms everyone, regardless of political affiliation.
de Tocqueville warned us a long time ago that our wonderful system of government only last until politicians realized they could bribe citizens with their own money.
He wasn’t prescient enough to foresee that politicians would exempt on half of the population from paying the taxes that funded that largess removing ANY skin in the game for that voting block.
The old rob Peter to pay Paul caper again. What a brainless twit.
I will no longer give anything to food banks now because of the number of people I know that are druggies that use it. I feel sory for those that truly need it but I am not inclined to support someone else’s bad habits.
No this is rob Paul to pay Paul ( but expect some losses due to administration overheads ).
These handouts will just lend people money from future tax income. The repayment conditions and interest rate will be worked out later ….
This is a test run for UBI where the state allocates credits to your account … as long as you are a worthy, docile citizen. If you do anything anti-social like question the efficacy of a vaccine, question where ballots were validated according to legal and constitutional law or “deny climate” , your credits will be cut off and you will die.
China already has the civil complicity index up and running.
The Biden mafia will be in charge of the US roll out.
No, it’s more like rob Peter and Paul to pay Paul (minus the handling fee). Only SOME people (“working class” – whatever that means) will get the $1200/mo per Bernie. So Peter gets to pay – but doesn’t get anything back.
Because, apparently, Peter is the problem. But somehow his money is the solution.
Communist/Socialist Sanders will never change his stripes.
I have known him for 30 years.
He always wants to give away someone else’s money to his own special pet projects to get more votes, more power and command/control
He celebrated his honeymoon in THE USSR, before the iron curtain came down.
The Russians fed him socialist bullshit and he lapped up.
He is totally pissed he was not appointed Secretary of Labor
He knows nothing about labor because he ALWAYS had government jobs.
He knows nothing about private enterprises, except to steal from them for his pet projects.
An amendment to a Bill or an amendment to the Constitution?
I think he is talking about amending the current relief bill that sends bankrupt cities big bucks, but nothing for individuals except those receiving unemployment.
to a bill. Specifically the COVID relief “stimulus” bill that’s been kicking around Washington DC for the past several months (neither party can seem to come to an agreement on what should and shouldn’t be in it, as both side have things they want to include that the other side doesn’t (and things they want to exclude that the other side wants included)
“If the value of the US dollar drops to zero, as happened with the Venezuelan Bolivar …”.
The US has adopted the Latin American election model, why not the political economic and social models as well and be done with it.
I blame the SCOTUS. Supposed to be made up of the smartest thinkers in the room … they just doomed America to death. Death via a perpetual one-Party rule.
My guess is that they didn’t want to get involved as doing the right thing would cause the civil war started by the left against the political right to accelerate into a full blown insurrection. We saw how insanely irrational Biden supporters became when fleeing criminals are killed by the police, imagine how they would react if SCOTUS reversed the election. It would be far worse than if Trump prevailed on election night and regarding that, many were already preparing for Armageddon, just in case.
SCOTUS must have figured that the political right would be good citizens, like they always have been, bend over and accept what happened, regardless of its legitimacy. I think they might have misjudged this.
You’re asking a socialist to make sense? To be practical? To have a consistent point of view? You ask too much.
Promises are not made for any reason other than to get or keep power for the moment. It’s irrelevant what the downstream effects will be.
How does Bernie reconcile handing people free money with his opposition to climate wrecking consumerism?”
That’s easy.
He’s trying to bankrupt the country. Taxes will necessarily become so high that who’ll have any disposable income left? Cloward-Piven.
Oh, Ye Of Little Faythe.
He’s boosting The Economy – maaaan – give him a break!
It will create jobs & get folks off the dole (Political Types like that, folks vote for them then) and it gets some Retail Therapy for the plebs.
*They* like that – what’s not to like= Free Dopamine.
While you’re about it:
Why not give them alcohol.
Er, OK
Alright, give them nicotine!! They’ll like that and nothing can go wrong there.
All natural and Plant Based, Plants are good aren’t they?
Er, OK
Ahh, I know. Give them cannabis! It’s harmless and gives massssses of Dopamine
Done that already? sigh
Haha, go it.
Tell them to eat cooked starch =sugar. C’mon now, how can *that* possibly go wrong?
What? It makes them fat lazy and stupid.
You jest, surely!
Ah but, they certainly *will* vote for the Candy Man *then* – otherwise he’ll take away their sugar supply.
Oh hello City Bankerman – what’s that you say?
“It drives inflation”
But surely, that’s bad isn’t it?
“No no no” says Bankerman (an ex-politician as it happens, *what* a coincidence!!)
He goes on, “Inflation devalues the money our Governments *have* to borrow, so when they pay it back several years hence, it’s worth much less than when they borrowed it”
Oh, That’s cool.
Tell you what, why don’t they print money, Governments can do that!
Ohh. They do already?
Groan. what on for a mo – I’ll think of *something*….
Aha!
Why don’t they go round town smashing windows and wrecking stuff, so *other* people gain employment fixing the wreckage. Maybe dig a few random holes in the road as well!?
No need? Why’s that?
The roads are already full of holes and The Ordinary People are gonna smash the windows when they discover they’ve been sold a Pyramid Scheme, their their money & savings are worthless and their kids are homeless.
What, the Local Authority will give them a tent to live in?
Been there, done that, got the tent…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-46020530
Ah well, that’s all alright then
Thanks Bernie
Australia’s federal governmdent has already done this to some large social groups like pensioners, to keep down unrest from financial stress during Covid lockdowns conducted by the various States.
The latest one, in eraly December, was with $250 cash in the bank for a pensioner.
I have seen the cover letter. It has this helpful, written advice. Bernie S might like its vacuous simplicity. It advises –
“You do not need to do anything.”
Geoff S
“If the value of the US dollar drops to zero, as happened with the Venezuelan Bolivar when the government started looting the economy to fund unsustainable social programmes, then Bernie gets to hand out free money which cannot actually be used to purchase anything.”
It’s been done before, all over Latin America. Promise the people a lot of free stuff. Run huge budget deficits. Create runaway inflation. Destroy the value of the currency. Seize power for a socialist aristocracy and then rig the vote to stay in power forever. Sound familiar, closer to home? It’s not an accident – it’s the leftist Plan!
When I stayed in Buenos Aires in the early 1990’s, my hotel room cost 200,000 Australes per night – that used to buy a house. Then the government re-valued the currency downward by 10,000 times – the new 5 Peso note had the same value as the old 50,000 Austral note – the same blue bill with the same picture of the guy with the big mustache – just four fewer zeros.
Money could be free, if people promised to work as hard and not be greedy. We could give people as much money as they wanted, provided they did a 40 hours of work each week and didn’t buy up everything in sight.
Thats the problem, greed and lazyness, money stimulates both of them.
When there isn’t anything to buy then money is worthless. Just ask the peasants living under Soviet or Venezualian communism. No amount of money can make you greedy or lazy in such a situation. You *have* to work just to survive.
In a free society, this is what a salary is for. What you’re really talking about is providing room and board for an indentured servant and that’s what Socialism is all about. Rather than enslaving a race, it’s about enslaving everyone to whoever is passing out the money.
Let’s not forget, that in the idealized Socialist world of ‘free money’ causing hyper inflation, any money received by anyone will be immediately spent before it devalues.
“if people promised to work as hard and not be greedy”
In other words, socialism could work, we just need people to stop being people.
People are lazy and greedy. They are born that way, money didn’t make them that way.
People were lazy and greedy before money, when barter was the only game in town.
To a degree. People, as a rule, will work as hard as they have to, and no harder. How hard they have to work will determine the degree to which they will be lazy.
Eric you have been on a roll lately. Well done!
I need to send this to my son who is a Bernie bro. He loves reading about free stuff. Thinks people shouldn’t have to work. I keep asking him if everything is free who will take your garbage away?
He he – I suspect climate concern will take second place to free stuff 😉
I am not mentally retarded so I understand the moral hazards inherent in socialism but, let’s face it, people, free markets do not distribute wealth fairly, let alone equitably. Does the CEO of Apple work thousands of times harder than a man who cleans his office? You may argue that the CEO produces more value, but his capacity to do that is heavily dependent on a series of happy events that began when he was a child.
I remember an interview with Paul Newman, who was careful to admit that extraordinarily good luck had played a huge part in his success. Pretty good of him to admit that, I would say. You would think that everyone would understand the value of good luck, but most successful people will tell you that they made their own luck. Well, if you have the power to make your own luck, that you have that power is largely due to good luck.
Everyone is dependent on the largesse of other people when they are children. Many people must be dependent on other people’s largesse as adults. If you work for somebody else, think how much you owe him for creating the circumstances of your employment.
Socialism is essentially an admission that life is not fair, and an attempt to mitigate its unfairness. Some socialism is necessary and good Even Rill O’Reilly must know that, surely.
arguing for equality of outcome is a dark, dangerous place. The arbiter of what is fair and just becomes the tyrant…. always.
Bingo
You mean to tell me only one Fearless Leader with the next Great Leap Forward can truly know what’s fair for all? Why haven’t they thought of that before now?
Socialism is the philosophy of life’s losers. Those who were too lazy to study in school and now are pissed that the geeks are doing better then them.
Apple’s CEO gets paid by his shareholders. It’s not up to people like Bernice to determine what that CEO is worth to his shareholders. How could he know?
Apple staff get remunerated on the basis of of supply and demand, like everything else – steel, glass, silicon – their “price” arises from what value they can offer and how many other people are willing to offer that value at a lower price.
People are born with different abilities and in economies with wildly different prospects. So, yes, life isn’t fair. But socialism is even less fair. Why should someone who works a 60-hour week subsidise soneone else who only wants to work 10?
Who said wealth should be distributed fairly? Is that what the Grasshopper said to the Ants?
There is no such thing as luck as a standalone entity. Luck happens when preparation meets opportunity.
A wage is *not* largesse. It is no different than barter. You are bartering your work product for money from someone that wants that work product.
The mitigation of unfairness typically winds up with nothing but shared misery. Just ask anyone who lived in the Soviet Union. Or is living in Venezuala today.
Yes, in a capitalist free market economy wealth is not distributed equally. However, the position in the wealth ladder is mostly determined by the choices the individuals make.
Also, most of those that are at the bottom of the ladder are far better off than the average person in countries with central command without having to do any work. Yet they are manipulated to make them envious of those that worked to better themselves so that the overlord wannabes can fulfill their dream of total control.
Ah, but look how much socialism is accepted as necessary. The justice system is essentially socialist, because the state assumes the burden of making the laws and enforcing them for the common benefit. That’s socialism. Or infrastructure, like roads, sewage or electricity. Impossible to build and maintain unless by socialist processes. Or public schools.
The mitigation of unfairness typically winds up with nothing but shared misery? What would be the obverse of that? Unchecked unfairness leads to unshared misery, with many more miserable than nonmiserable people. Consider the United States in 1900, when there was no income tax. (Or anyway no progressivity in whatever income tax there was.) Nobody wants to go back to a time before labour laws and no state medical care and the violent suppression of trade unions surely.
Ayn Rand was quite a bit more deranged and impractical than Bernie Sanders ever was.
Just because losers are able to use the power of government to take stuff from people who have earned it, is not evidence that “society” is tolerating anything. It is just evidence that the in our system of government, the majority has the power to take what ever it wants from everyone.
If someone’s misery is due to their own poor choices, then why should those who made good choices be punished?
Ian,
You have some funny ideas about what is socialist and what is not.
“The justice system is essentially socialist, because the state assumes the burden of making the laws and enforcing them for the common benefit.”
The justice system provides a service through a contract with the people. That isn’t socialism at all. The state ASSUMES no burden, the people delegate authority. The laws are made by the people through their duly elected representatives. If the representatives don’t make laws the people like, the people can vote in different representatives to change the laws they don’t like.
“Or infrastructure, like roads, sewage or electricity. Impossible to build and maintain unless by socialist processes. Or public schools.”
Again, there is nothing “socialist” about any of this. These are services provided by the people through the delegation of power and authority.
The old adage of socialism/communism – “from each according to ability and to each according to need” explains everything you need to know. Take farm-to-market roads. These were originally nothing more than trails cut by wagons while moving agricultural products to markets. After a period of time, the people using these trails delegated the responsibility for maintaining these farm-to-market roads to county officials and they paid taxes used to accomplish this. That isn’t socialism at all. It’s the free market acting as it should.
And sewage? My sewage and all my neighbors have septic systems for our sewage. Paid for privately with no tax money involved. The sewage treatment plant in the nearby city was paid for by bonds issued by the city – which the people paid off with a special tax assessment. Even today when the sewer system is extended to an annexed area of land, the landowners in that area incur a special tax assessment to pay for the infrastructure. There is no “socialism” involved in this.
Public schools are the same. They are paid for by special tax assessments on the property owners in the area. How is that socialism?
The people grouping together to pay for services is not socialism.
People were building roads and canals, long before government got into the act.
It really amazes me how historically ignorant your average progressive/socialist is.
The quality of American education began to decline with the creation of public school systems. Literacy in the US was in the 90th percentile at the turn of the 20th century, when so-called progressives began to push for public education. Communities set up schools and hired teachers on their own, and took educating the next generation seriously.
The point of the push for compulsory public education was to get the kids away from their families for a good portion of the day, the easier to indoctrinate them with left-wing Bad Ideas.
I’m a Canadian, and in Canada we have passed into law what is perhaps the most socialist body of statutes that has ever been enacted in a country with a predominantly free market economy. These are the statutes establishing single payer government health insurance. If you’re American and opposed to socialism of any kind, Canadian health care is going to offend you mightily. But let me tell you, our health care system may be the aspect of our economic lives that we must treasure.
How socialist is Canadian health care? It is illegal for anyone to purchase health care for himself that is superior to that offered to all citizens. (There are a few departures from this rule . For example people getting workers’ compensation payments from the Governments are allowed to jump the queue. But, in the general case, a multimillionaire must accept the same health care at the same time for as a pauper.) Almost since their inception, these laws have been challenged in the courts, but the challenges are always defeated. Canadian single payer health care is sacrosanct.
And what are its drawbacks? Well, we’ve got much longer wait times for things like joint replacement surgeries than affluent or well-insured Americans must endure. What we don’t have is personal bankruptcies from catastrophic medical bills, which are a commonplace in the U.S. Think about that: No one has to sell off most of his assets to pay for medical care.
The American system has been designed in advance to deny medical care to many sick people. When you’ve tied health insurance to employment, as in the U.S.,a feature of your system is that only those who are healthy enough to work, and who work for an employer who will pay their premiums, are covered. The cruelty of the American system, next to the benevolence and generosity of the Canadian system, is stark.
And here’s the real kicker: We pay much less per capita for our health care system than the Americans. Our system not only covers everybody but is more economically efficient over all. So, in this instance, socialism produces a large net benefit to many, many people.
But of course, your doctors get paid a lot more than ours, because the sale of medical care heavily weights the power of the transactions to the seller over the buyer. If you need an operation, you must pay what the doctor charges you. or live in pain and maybe die. It is that inequality, irreducible and inherent in the system, that our socialist system successfully obviates.
So there is my defense of moderate socialism.
It really amazes me how eager socialists are to promote lies in defense of socialism.
It’s not just hip replacements that you have to wait for in Canadian health care, it’s every form of health care, up to and including procedures that save lives.
The Canadian health care keeps costs down by ensure that a non-trivial fraction of patients die while waiting in line.
Yes, people who have the money can’t jump ahead in line, instead they come down to the US to get the procedures they need to save their own lives, even if they have to pay for it themselves.
This alleged epidemic of personal bankruptcies due to health care costs is yet another lie invented from whole cloth by the socialists.
That health care was tied to employment was a deliberate policy by government. They are the ones who made health care premiums deductible for companies, but not for individuals. Remove that, and health care would be tied to individuals, not employment the way it used to be.
“The American system has been designed in advance to deny medical care to many sick people. ”
Complete and utter lie.
I agree that Canadian health care costs less, but the way they do this is to provide vastly inferior health care.
Nobody benefits from socialized medicine.
A Canadian multimillionaire is not going to wait in line when he can secure faster and better healthcare overseas, or just cross the border. An honest bit of searching will reveal that the elite of many countries with socialized medicine go elsewhere for their healthcare needs. Like to the US.
Single-payer yields your autonomy in regards to your own health over to an impersonal bureaucracy, who can choose whether or not to pay for a treatment and thus whether or not you get treatment. They get to effectively put a price on your quality of life, or just on your life, period. Heaven help you if they decide you’re not worth treating and you don’t have the means to seek private care abroad.
KAT shrugged.
“the position in the wealth ladder is mostly determined by the choices the individuals make. ”
..
No, this statement is not true. One’s position in the wealth ladder is mostly determined by who one’s parents are. Most wealth is inherited.
This is one of the famous lies that the lazy and greedy like to tell each other. However, it isn’t true.
The vast majority of people who are currently wealthy, did not start out wealthy.
The grand children of those who were fabulously wealthy 100 years ago are solidly middle class today.
This is the free market in action. The only time it doesn’t work is when government gets involved.
Lets see:
Jeff Bezos inherited his wealth? Bill Gates? Jack Dorsey? Even George Soros?
Statistics show over the years that a small percentage of the population holds most of the wealth. Bernie et all love that stat, but fail to point out that that small population has a huge turnover and is comprised of different individuals over time. (See examples above who were not “wealthy” during more than 1/2 of my lifetime.
bethan,
Total and absolute malarky! I grew up poor. I actually remember getting a cardboard box for a Christmas present one year! I made it into a horse by cutting a hole in it and hanging it off my shoulders. Coupled with a stick for a sword. Had lots of fun.
Went to work sweeping store floors when I was ten. By the time I was 13 I was working in the Kansas hay fields bucking bales behind the baler. I worked my way through college to get a BSEE degree. Saved 10% of everything I made even though it wasn’t much at some points. I retired at Soc Sec age with a pretty good nest egg. All I ever inherited was enough to pay funeral costs.
I know a lot of people who did the same thing. Sadly I also know a lot of people that blew their money on second homes, fancy stereo equipment, European vacations, etc and are living off SS today worrying about their next medical bill, utility bill, or grocery bill.
Sure there are a few who inherited their wealth. But they *are* just a few. If you insist on comparing your status or wealth to them it will be a losing proposition. It only engenders jealousy and envy!
No, bethan456 it’s your statement that is not true. Most wealth is not inherited. only 20% of millionaires inherited their wealth, the other 80% are first generation wealthy (with half of millionaires being self-employed or business owners)
let’s look at some at the top of the wealth ladder:
Jeff Bezos? Did not inherit his wealth, built a business (Amazon)
Bill Gates? Did not inherit his wealth, built a business (Microsoft)
Warren Buffet? Did not inherit his wealth, made it through investing (Berkshire Hathaway).
Larry Ellison? Did not inherit his wealth, built a business (Oracle)
Mark Zuckerberg? Did not inherit his wealth, built a business (Facebook)
noticing a pattern there?
Sorry Bethan but the only thing it has to with inheritance is the attitude to work for something and not be a bludger. I have a neighbour that was amazed to hear that I had never taken an unemployment benefit in my life and I wouldn’t feel much of a man if I had.
That neighbour was brighter than I at school but has turned out to be the most useless turd I have ever known. Got involved in drugs and between him and his sister basically put his mother in the poor house.
All that occurred because of the chooses that those two people made.
The daughters husband even took the fall for her and did a prison sentence.
Blind people like you just make me feel angry.
Like most people who claim not to be socialists, you don’t understand reality.
It’s completely irrelevant how hard someone works. What matters is the value of what you produce while you work.
According to your theory, the wage of someone who digs a ditch by hand should be hundreds of times greater then the wage of someone who uses a back hoe to dig hundreds of ditches in the same amount of time.
According to your theory, a waiter should be paid more than an accountant. After all, doesn’t the waiter work harder?
The problem with your theory of economics is that nobody would ever take the effort to learn how to be an accountant, since the extra effort will never be rewarded.
What you see as unfair, is merely the market rewarding a person for what they have actually done. That’s the ultimate in fairness.
The only people who spend their time whining about how unfair it is that CEO’s make more than they do are people who never bothered to improve themselves, and then want someone else to reward them for their past failures.
Life isn’t fair, socialism is even less so.
+1
MarkW: Okay, let’s drop the pursuit of fairness as an argument, which is wise since the perception of fairness is subjective. How about, life is unkind, and socialism is an attempt to mitigate that unkindness.
The beating heart of laissez faire economics is a callous disregard for the sufferings of the poor. You may have a decent income if you are worthy, the story goes, otherwise you may not. That’s a little too harsh for me.
On a personal note, I have yet to meet anyone who really did work hard who wasn’t consumed with resentment of people whose lives were easier. Hard=working, successful people are angrier than left=wingers, and get very upset at the thought that slackers are not made to suffer. That’s a pretty common phenomenon.
In my youth I worked on separate occasions for two farmers. One was in his fifties and the other in his sixties. Farming is brutally hard physical labour, even for a young man, and those men were tired all the time, and were in constant danger of weather events or market economies beyond their control that might wipe out their profits in any given year. Those were the meanest, angriest bosses I ever had. I never got a kind or friendly word out of either, and they drove me like a rented mule. Nothing made them angrier than to see me smile or in any way indicate that I was enjoying myself. And that’s what so many really hard-working people are like.
What a load of diarrhoea saying that hard working people are angry. Saying something so stupid you must still be wet behind the ears.
Well, mike, not all hard-working people are angry, but a disproportionately large cohort of them are. Hard work tends to ruin a man’s disposition. The nicest people I know are rather easy-going. People who make a point of saying, “I work hard” tend to want credit for their hard work, and when they don’t get it to the degree they want they get pretty ornery. That’s been my experience.
Needless to say, I am not a hard worker myself, although I’m reasonably diligent and conscientious. You just don’t catch me working to the point of near-exhaustion. I’m the kind of guy who gives money to panhandlers. I get a boot of spreading the dough around a little, which is why I understand Bernie Sanders’s appeal.
Well, mike, not all hard-working people are angry, but a disproportionately large cohort of them are.
Bull shit!
He can’t help it. He’s convinced that the only reason why anyone is nice to anyone else is because there’s a law that requires it.
Ian is a typical socialist, he’s utterly convinced that everyone else is as full of hatred as he is.
No Ian Coleman your mistake was saying that hard working people are angry.
I’ve worked in a shearing gang and that is very hard work and probably had about the best time of my life with those people. Everyone gets angry at times but mostly they were very happy people.
I suspect that I have known a lot more farmers than you have otherwise you wouldn’t have the attitude you do.
You also screwed up when you said “Nothing made them angrier than to see me smile or in any way indicate that I was enjoying myself.” I call bullshit on that. Apart from a very rare case people just aren’t like that.
Actually, Mike, the anger I got from those farmers was probably the result of class resentment. I was going to university at the time, and I lived in my parents’ house, which was in a prosperous neighbourhood. They drove me home, saw that house, and I think it bothered them a bit. Also I was at the time a very nice young man, and they were very mean guys. Mean people dislike nice people. they might have been firiendlier to me if I were a rough, foul-tempered farmboy like they were, but I wasn’t. It’s like if you’re friendly and pleasant, you’re obviously not trying very hard in life. It was some weird thing like that, and I’ve come across it quite a few times in my life.
I am immediately wary of anyone who says he works hard. First of all, most people work hard. Every day they do things that take stamina and patience. This is the nature of work for most people, and it is hard. A man who says “I work hard” wants extra pay. He wants your deference or your admiration or he’s citing an excuse for being mean or bad=tempered. Or he’s just feeling sorry for himself and want you to join in. And a lot of these gentry have a profound resentment of people whose lives are easier.
Yet more diarrhea. You just don’t give up do you. You just give me the impression that you think that you are superior which is the opposite of what you try and portray in your posts.
Sorry but I just don’t believe you as it is like tree hugging greenies that actually live life to the opposite.
Class resentment. Fancy words for saying they are PO’d that other people are allowed to have more than they do.
Once again proving that it is jealousy, not any garbage about fairness, that drives socialists.
Well, Mike, if you’ve never been bullied by a mean boss you have been very fortunate. It is possible that I made up the story about the farmers, and you don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to. There is really nothing I can say to convince you I’m telling the truth if you think I’m lying.
But those farmers were really rough guys. One of them would fly into screaming rages over any little thing. His wife and his daughter both had that crushed, frightened look that people who are constantly abused develop. The other guy was not so bad-tempered. He was just chronically mean-spirited. He had had a hard life growing up in The Netherlands during the war, and I think other people’s ease and happiness bothered him. I was in my early 20s then, tall and strong and eager to please, but I never got a kind word out of him. Which was weird, as we were the only people in the operation. Why would a man who had only one workmate refuse to make friends with that workmate? To a friendly guy like me, it just made no sense.
I have to agree with mike. You are spouting unmitigated nonsense (to put it kindly).
Well, John, what part seems like nonsense? Even if it were all fiction (and it’s all true), none of what I’m written is so implausible that it couldn’t be true. It is not possible that I worked for hard, mean men when I was young? It is not possible that I was a nice young man who was a good worker, and yet was abused?
I’ve got stories about working for nice people too. Would you be inclined to disbelieve those?
Look, you guys don’t have an argument that makes sense. You think that nobody should ever have anything they didn’t earn, which leaves people unable to earn anything destitute. That just won’t work because it would leave millions of people with nothing. We have to mitigate inequality by confiscating money from people who have it and redistributing to people who don’t. That is the essence of socialism, and life without it would be unsustainable. You just can’t deny that and be taken seriously.
As you continue to beat your drum I believe you less and less. The more you show your attitude the more I can understand those farmers thinking you were as useless as tits on a bull.
Years ago when I was working for a builder we were doing a job for a guy that wanted his pound of flesh. On that job I probably did one of the hardest days work I have ever done. Years later whenever I met him we always had a good conversation and he always treated me with great respect and I respected him.
Quote “Look, you guys don’t have an argument that makes sense.”. Saying that just shows me that you are still wet behind the ears and really wouldn’t know what a hard days work was.
How is stealing money from those who earned it in order to give it to those who don’t want to work, kind?
There is nothing in laissez faire that prevents people from helping the poor. It is your sad delusion that only government is capable of forcing people to care for each other.
The sad truth is that socialism promotes a jealousy towards those who have been more successful, that’s how the politicians gain power over you.
I don’t know why all of the people you know are so angry at the world. Perhaps it’s you. I also know many hard working people and not a single one of them matches your description.
Y,know, Mark, if you read my posts, they don’t contain any insults of other posters, and in fact I consider it normal etiquette not to insult people for disagreeing with me. So far I’ve been called stupid, ignorant, and full of hatred, and accused of lying. All I have done is explain the philosophical and personal attractions of socialism.
You don’t know me just as I don’t know you. Your basic assumption seems to be that socialists are resentful thieves of the labour and talent of others and, since I have defended socialism (mildly and reasonably) I must be a bad person. Well, I disagree.
Notice that the above paragraphs do not contain any insults, although they do constitute a polite rebuke.
The Mormon Church takes ten percent of income or produce from its members and is the second richest organisation in the world after the Catholic Church. Governments take a hell of a lot more than that and yet there are way too many people still poor. You have to ask yourself why.
I know that you are a socialist.
I know that you are trying to defend the theft of stuff from people who have more than you do based on nothing more than the fact that you want it.
That’s enough.
I’m not insulting you, I’m telling the truth about what you believe and what you want to impose on others. If you find that insulting, then maybe you should spend some time examining your soul.
Sorry Ian Coleman but you are full of tutae. I believe very little of what you say.
“free markets do not distribute wealth fairly”
Any time I hear people talk about the “distribution of wealth,” I know the argument is disingenuous to begin with. Wealth isn’t “distributed.” Wealth is “earned.” If you want to say wealth isn’t earned equally, I’ll agree with you. If you want to say that wealth isn’t earned fairly, I’ll ask you to explain what is unfair about it. To say that wealth is distributed puts the determinative factors outside the individual, whereas, understanding that wealth is earned, puts the onus on the individual.
Socialism doesn’t attempt to mitigate the unfairness of life. It seeks to take power and control away from the individual in exchange for a false feeling of security.
Yes, there is no Law of Conservation of Wealth. New wealth can be created, lifting everyone up, and existing wealth can be destroyed, letting everyone down.
Ian Coleman posted: “I am not mentally retarded so I understand the moral hazards inherent in socialism but, let’s face it, people, free markets do not distribute wealth fairly, let alone equitably.”
Well, one of the greatest documents ever written, the US Declaration of Independence, says this:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Note carefully the wisdom of the Founding Fathers: they specifically recognized the right of “pursuit” of happiness, and specifically EXCLUDED that the government should “guarantee equitable happiness”, for all persons.
A big difference, there . . . but apparently not so self-evident to some nowadays.
As Benjamin Franklin replied to someone claiming they were guaranteed happiness, he replied: “Yes, but you have to catch it yourself. If you can. “
Hello Mr. Dressler. Bernard Shaw said that the rich think that poverty serves the poor right. The essential mistake so many of you antisocialists make is that anyone, through honest effort can escape poverty. But of course that isn’t true. Many, many people lack the basic capacities to earn their own livings. They are citizens. We can’t just make them disappear. They must be cared for. Only state-mandated socialism can do that.
My vote for the greatest president in American history? Franklin Roosevelt, who laid the bedrock for the creation of the American middle class. Without the New Deal, American society would have bifurcated into the affluent and the poor. Income tax was dramatically more progressive than it is now, and the fifties were a time of astonishing creation of American wealth.
Obviously you can have too much socialism. The U.K. in the seventies was a fine example of the sort of economic despondency that follows on too much government meddling in the marketplace. But come on, you must have some mitigations of social and economic inequality or the results would be dire for millions of people.
Just because you want to believe something is true, doesn’t make it true.
Millions of people have escaped poverty. It happens all the time.
The only people who lack the basic ability to earn a living are those with very low IQs.
That people are capable of looking out for people who need help is more than adequately demonstrated by the mere fact that such people were being taken care of long before government got into the act. If you look around you, you will see millions of people going out of their way to help others, completely of their own volition.
Just because you are mean spirited and filled with hatred is not proof that everyone else is.
FDR, you mean the guy who took a minor recession, deliberately turned it into a major depression, and then used that depression as an excuse to enslave the American people to their goverenment?
Mr. Coleman, you recently posted: “We can’t just make them disappear. They must be cared for. Only state-mandated socialism can do that.”
Do you really think, for one second, the US has totally abandoned or “caused to disappear” US citizens that are in need of help, independent of the root cause of their situation?
In case you are not aware, here is just a short listing of Federal assistance programs that are readily available to the truly poor and destitute in this wonderful nation:
— Supplemental Security Income (SSI)
— Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance program (CHIP)
— Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF)
— Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP or “food stamps”)
— the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)
— housing assistance (including the the Housing Choice Voucher Program and the Low-Income
Home Energy Assistance Program)
(source: https://www.thebalance.com/welfare-programs-definition-and-list-3305759#:~:text=There%20are%20six%20major%20U.S.,EITC)%2C%20and%20housing%20assistance. )
You can also add on to this list the de factor “free”-to-all services available for primary school education, school-provided meals and emergency room care.
And note that these assistance programs are separate from Federal entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Then too, many states offer poor/low income individuals and families assistance in addition to what the above Federal government grants (for example, Electronic Benefit Transfer, or EBT, cards).
Given these FACTS, I do not know of anyone that can rationally argue that the poor and indigent in the US have been “disappeared” or that the Federal and state governments in the US have not made heroic efforts to mitigate their suffering (which you characterize as “inequalities” . . . and I don’t).
Your statement “Only state-mandated socialism can do that” begs the question of whether or not such socialism is the current form of government in the US or is something to be dreamed of in your future.
Finally, alarm bells go off whenever I hear anyone using the phrase “you xxxx” in a pejorative manner (substitute whatever segmented group you choose for xxxx). Don’t you really have a hidden agenda here?
Hello, Mr. Dressler. All the programs you have listed are socialist, and are furnished by governments. That they exist reinforces my point, which is that a certain amount of socialism is accepted as necessary. Also, “antisocialist” is not a pejorative any more than “socialist” is. These are just descriptors, like “liberal” or “conservative.”
Listen, boys, I know as well as you do that Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are wrong and often crooked. I have merely tried to explain their appeal, and in the process came to the defense of state-mandated redistribution of wealth. Inequality (and yes, inequality of outcome) is a serious problem if there is more of it that many people can stand.
As I say, no sane person would like to restore the social and economic conditions that existed in the United States in 1900.
Mr. Coleman, you stated: “All the programs you have listed are socialist.”
“Definition of socialism
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property
b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.”
—https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
The assistance programs I listed were all developed under a capitalistic system/economy in the United States. There was and is no correlation of those programs to any of the four definitions of “socialism” given above.
Moreover, there is a distinct difference between a society agreeing on citizen-funded charity to “provide for the common Welfare” of the people and a tyrannical “stated-mandated redistribution of wealth” (your words).
Nor will you find the philosophy of socialism (per above definitions) endorsed anywhere in the two guiding documents for the United States: the US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution.
Since we apparently can’t find common ground on the definition of “socialism”, and therefore will never establish what you mean with your phrase “you antisocialists”, there is little reason to continue this discussion.
Have a good life!
Wait a minute, Gordon. I say “socialism” you read “communism.” Well, that explains a lot of the hostility I’m getting here, but you’re making a semantic error.
Where did you get this definition of socialism anyway? Socialism is any government program that taxes people and then redistributes some of the proceeds to people who have less or no money. I thought that was the definition we were all using. Medicare and Welfare are socialist. It could be reasonably argued that the justice system is socialist, as it is designed to provide for all citizens regardless of the financial contribution they make to its upkeep. Everyone is to some extent a socialist.
When people say, Canada is more socialist that the United States, or that Sweden is more socialist than Canada, what did you think they meant?
Yet despite all of those programs, poverty keeps going up.
The poor were better off prior to government programs designed to care for them.
Socialism is just a step along the way to communism. Even the communists admit that.
The reason why is simple.
Socialism doesn’t work. As a result, those who want to live off of other people’s stuff need government to grow ever bigger and ever stronger.
Good luck.
Bull manure
Newman was a superb actor.
He was used by Hollywood masters who recognized his talent and potential and made him shine.
The only good luck he had was being born.
Hello, Willem post. Newman disagreed. Of course Paul Newman had extraordinary talent, and I’ll bet he worked pretty hard for his success. It’s just that he had to get very lucky in a lot of ways that were beyond his control to be as successful as he became.
Just being borne with his gifts in the first place is good luck. Then there had to be a motion picture industry. Newman knew that this was his good luck.
This world is heavily populated with people who are weak or personally unattractive or just plain stupid. Socialism and its applications raises them up and gives them a chance at some happiness in this life. I say that that’s a good thing.
Of course I don’t demand equality of outcome, which is impossible to attain. I do ask that people have some shield against the effects of penury.
It never ceases to amaze me how utterly ignorant your average socialist is, both to basic economics and to human nature.
Even during the depths of the depression, when unemployment hit 25% and none of St. Franklins socialist nostrums had been put in place. Nobody starved.
Your notion that absent government coercion, nobody would care for someone else is refuted by the real world. Something it would benefit you to visit from time to time.
Bernie is good at getting votes. If the Republicans were smart, they’d own that idea and they would own those voters Bernie is trying to buy.
The coalition of expensive, (and stupid) climate emergency fanatics and the the working poor is unsustainable. Republicans should see this as an opportunity to buy votes. Let’s pay for those votes with green dollars. Steal the money from the rich greens and their mindless, costly, distorting subsidies and give it directly to the lower 3/5s of the voters as covid relief.
Trump proved that you can buy their vote, buy it. “Environmentalists grind down the poor with their expensive energy boondoggles.” That’s what the republican message ought to be.
ah yes… become what you despise in the name of political power. I’ll pass.
… “An unlimited market, Mr. Rearden?” the purchasing manager asked dryly.
Rearden glanced up at him. “I guess I’m not smart enough to make the sort of deals needed nowadays,” he said, in answer to the unspoken thoughts that hung across his desk.
The purchasing manager shook his head. “No, Mr. Rearden, it’s one or the other. The same kind of brain can’t do both. Either you’re good at running the mills or you’re good at running to Washington.”
“Maybe I ought to learn their method.”
“You couldn’t learn it and it wouldn’t do you any good. You wouldn’t win in any of those deals. Don’t you understand? You’re the one who’s got something to be looted.”
…
+1000
If the only way to win the game is to out socialist the socialist, then it’s time to get out of the game.
With Dominion Voting Machines, republicans won’t get any votes. Just look at the 2020 election.
Biden – 80 million votes? – never!
Dominion Voting machines must all be impounded.
And forensically inspected. . .
– JPP
Just ask Joe Oltmann and Eric Coomer!
Look them up
“Bernie Sanders says he is opposed to capitalist excess, yet at the same time he supports a universal basic income, a recipe for government funding of consumerist excess.” Perhaps this money is intended to allow disadvantaged people to pay the rent, buy food, and and acquire some of the other basic necessities of life rather than engage in “consumerist excess.”
They aren’t paying rent now?
Or is this policy for the denizens in San Fran who are pooping on the sidewalk?
Is a cell phone a necessity of life? How many poor people that can’t pay rent have a cell phone today?
Is air conditioning a necessity of life? How many poor people that can’t pay their rent have air conditioning today?
Seems to me the poor in this country today aren’t really all that poor.
There’s already welfare for all of that.
For the most part this is just money to enable those who don’t want to work to continue the lifestyle of their choice.
The most basic necessity of life is to provide for your own needs. Animals get that. Plants even get that. Only certain humans don’t get that.
Today is Monday 14 December 2020, the day the Electoral College announces what the mob decided. What they want they get. SCROOM
Funny, I thought the mob were the traitors rioting in DC, wanting to overturn the election.
We stole the election fair and square, how dare you demand that we actually follow the law.
The only one attempting to steal the election is TraitorTrump.
Your hatred of Trump has caused your brain to be no longer capable of processing reality.
That the election has been stolen has been documented.
That various states refused to follow their own laws has been documented.
That progressives don’t care, so long as they win and can scam themselves more free stuff is also well documented.
It really is funny how the mind of a socialist works.
Wanting the states to follow their own laws, is trying to steal an election.
What amuses me the most is that the inflation that is the inevitable result of this mindless spending hurts the poor who have to spend 100% of their money on survival the most while benefitting the rich who can invest in assets that adjust with inflation. Good work, Bernie!
Deport Bernie to Venezuela….Cuba….China….anywhere but here…and all those of his ilk too….like Joey Biden…Nanci Piglosi….all of ’em.
Economic stimulus isn’t exactly “mindless spending”. Of course, exactly how to target it, and how much are up for debate. Was the initial $1,200 direct payment in the Spring “mindless spending”? Most economists would probably say no, that it was a net benefit to a flagging economy.
I do remember that, not long after the initial $1,200 payments, a second payment was discussed. At this point, inflation is not on economist’s radar. That’s not to say that it couldn’t be some time down the road, but at this point, Job 1 is keeping the economy on a relatively even keel while we are still navigating through a pandemic.
The supreme irony of course, is that the Dems, while pretending to be concerned about the economy are willing, nay, eager, to tie an anchor to our struggling economy in the name of a completely fake “climate crisis”.
Amazing how socialists can ignore all the times their schemes have failed in the past, with a firm conviction, that this time it’s gonna work.
From the article: “Bernie Sanders says he is opposed to capitalist excess, yet at the same time he supports a universal basic income”
Bernie is not proposing a universal basic income in this bill, he is just proposing another round of relief payments to people. The U.S. government sent out checks of about $1,200.00 a few months ago, and Bernie and Hawley are wanting to do that again, on a one-time basis. Trump favors that, too.
Nancy Pelosi has been holding the American people hostage for months over these relief bills. She is trying to blackmail the Republicans into paying off bankrupt union pension funds in various Blue States. Nancy says, if you don’t agree to help the union pension funds, then I don’t agree to help the American people.
I would have to say that Nancy Pelosi is the worst Speaker of the House in my memory. Everything is power politics with her. To the disadvantage of the American people.
Republicans need to hold control of the U.S. Senate in order to control insane people like Nancy Pelosi. Giving her free reign would be a disaster. She is already a disaster without free reign.
<I>Bernie is not proposing a universal basic income in this bill, he is just proposing another round of relief payments to people. </I>
And he’ll propose another round in the next bill, and another one in the bill after that and so on.
<I>I would have to say that Nancy Pelosi is the worst Speaker of the House in my memory. </I>
Agreed.
Being a Vermonter, I will state:
“Bernie Sanders is a crook.”
He almost destroyed Burlington, Vermont when he was the mayor with his wacko ideas and crazy spending. Unfortunately, the residents of Burlington thought the best way to get rid of him was to send him to Washington as a Rep in the House — eventually moving on to the Senate.
Bernie likes to hire his wife, daughter and friends to run his campaigns (money laundering, many of us call it), sell out to Hilary and Joe so he can buy homes and investments while beating down the “one percenters” for living in excess and not sharing. Somehow or other he keeps getting re-elected along with Welch and Leahy. The only hope we have here in Vermont is a sad hope — everyone eventually will die.
However, Eric, this is no different than the offer given through the CARES act. It is a one time offer. The first one was wrong, in my opinion, and a second one is wrong. Never shutting the economy down would have been the right choice and, unfortunately, our President did not push that hard enough into the minds of the people. My wife and I are still waiting for our $2400 payment despite the fact that we make much, much less than the maximum one can to get the “free money.”
Unless the united states government declares its debts uncollectable (don’t know exactly how that would work), this will cost our children and grandchildren dearly (but not the descendants of the politicians). So sad.
Regards to all
AK in VT
Hey, Bernie, it appears in your tweet that you forgot to say if those handouts of free money would be every day, every month, every year or every decade, or just a one-time event. What gives?
Anyone with an IQ over room temperature knows how often one is given something makes a real difference.
And “kids” being given $500 compared to working adults being given just a measly $1,200? . . . how dare you!
Please up each amount by a factor of ten, if not a factor of one hundred. Easy peasy.
Bernie the commie doesn’t need $1200…..Bernie owns at least 2 large homes…drives a $100k plus foreign car….if he needed $1200, he could get it from Nanci Piglosi…she has $1200 ice cream packed in her freezers.
Two constants with socialism.
Those who run always get extremely wealthy. Everyone else gets only poverty.
Lets see:
Jeff Bezos inherited his wealth? Bill Gates? Jack Dorsey? Even George Soros?
Statistics show over the years that a small percentage of the population holds most of the wealth. Bernie et all love that stat, but fail to point out that that small population has a huge turnover and is comprised of different individuals over time. (See examples above who were not “wealthy” during more than 1/2 of my lifetime.
Before anyone tells you about how successful socialism is in Europe, just remember that most of the middle class in Europe would fall well below the poverty line in the US.