JAN MEL POLLER: INCOME INEQUALITY AND REALITY
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The last American government push was “The Affordable Health Care Act”, previously known as “Obamacare”. We know how well that is working out.
Now they are diverting our attention to “Income Inequality” because that is supposed to be a very bad thing; it is unfair, it is un-American. Equality means absolutely equal. Period. It does not mean less inequality. However, this smacks of George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”: “All the animals are equal but some are more equal than others”.
If we are to have income equality, then a homeless person and Tiger Woods have to make absolutely the same amount of money. Either everyone makes nothing or everyone makes $74 million a year. If everyone makes $74 million a year, then $74 million is effectively nothing. We can take the pre-Nazi Weimar Republic as an example but Zimbabwe makes an even better example. $1 Zimbabwe dollar became $1 Trillion Zimbabwe dollars and a loaf of bread cost $1 trillion Zimbabwe dollars.
There would be an advantage if this happened in the United States: we could pay off the National Debt with 18 loaves of bread.
Cubans make next to nothing: $15 a month. That certainly reduces the ability of Cubans to buy any imported goods. It may be fair that a doctor and a sanitation worker makes the same $15 a month but think of the industries and businesses that are destroyed. Just think, no one can buy a car or car parts. I again emphasize the fairness of this. If one person can’t buy a car, no one else should. Of course, the apparatchiks will have unlimited use of cars.
This fairness, this equality of income destroys initiative and creativity. Why stick your neck out and create something that no one can buy and that you won’t get any rewards for? We have numerous examples of these “equal but some are more equal” societies: Communist China, Communist Russia, Communist East German, North Korea, Cuba …
We have many people supporting this “Fairness” idea. In general, they only want the redistribution to apply to those who have at least $1 more than they have. They want the wealthy to give up their airplanes, boats, luxury cars and houses. They forget the luxury tax that was applied some years ago. They forget that people who have a 120’ yacht aren’t going to suffer if they can’t buy a 130’ yacht. However, the workers who made the yachts and airplanes had reduced income or even lost their jobs.
There is absolutely nothing keeping people from giving away everything they have so that they can be equal and fair to those who have nothing. They don’t do it because they like what they achieved in life. They don’t want to live on $15.00 a month. Neither does anyone making $15.01 a month or more.
When people hear these lofty ideals, they should take a look at reality. They should look at the societies where people have plenty to eat, good housing, TV’s and computers. They should look at which societies develop medicines and medical devices. They should compare the consumer and industrial goods technologies of today to that of 20 and 120 years ago. They should consider why we aren’t cave men anymore and why our life span is in the 70’s and not the 30’s.
They should remember that few people fled the “decedent” United States for the paradises of Cuba, The Soviet Union and Communist China. People like living well. Remember that we are not all equal. Some people can sing, dance and act. Some can give great public speeches. Some of us can write computer software, some can fix cars and some are plumbers.
What we can all do is look for reality. We can tell when our leaders are giving us nonsense.
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