SOCIALISM GRADING AVERAGE
An economics professor at a university said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.
After the first test the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. But, as the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too; so they studied little...
The second Test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed the greater the reward but when a government takes all the reward away no one will try or succeed.
Whether you agree with it or not, please take a moment to seriously contemplate where current government policy is leading us. The harder you work, the more they take; the less you contribute, the more you get.
Next story...
THE TAX SYSTEM EXPLAINED IN BEER
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this…
The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7..
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that’s what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20″. Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.
The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes. So the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men? The paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?
They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.
So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.
And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.
“I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,”but he got $10!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar too. It’s unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!”
“Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison, “we didn’t get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!”
The nine men surrounded the tenth and berated him for his selfishness.
The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is how our tax system works. The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
The wealthy do pay taxes. Don't demonize someone for being successful and don't bite the hand that feeds you.
So there you have it. Just a couple little tidbits that fly around the internet every day, but a couple tidbits that I think are profound.
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I agree; the harder you work, the more they take. We just don't agree on who "They" are.When Ronald Reagan took over as preident, the marginal tax rate for the richest 2% was 91%. Everyone, including the uber wealthy, was doing well. The rich were getting richer, we had a thriving middle class who could afford to buy the goods they helped create, and the unfortunate in OUR society were not treated like so much detritus, the way they are now.
ReplyDeleteLife was good.
Back to our premise. They are not taking more, if you mean the government. 95% of taxpayers paid less this year under the new administration. The top 2%, who control over 50% of the wealth of this country, now have a marginal tax rate of 33% (more or less). The middle class is being destroyed by the greed of those at the top. So "they", the top two percent, are taking more from the middle class, who now cannot afford the goods they produce or health care for their families, and the poor are treated like dogshit, even though many of them are "working poor" who have jobs, but no benefits (wouldn't want to dent that bottom line).
The less you contribute, the more you get, Correct again, if you're in the top 2%. Their taxes are down, their profits are up, all at the expense of the workers.
I think we're going somewhere we need to go to heal the chasm between those who have and those who don't. Health care is a great start; it will save money in the long run, not to mention protect our citizens. True, I wish we'd get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanastan, since that's where we're dumping our national treasure on missions I don't understand. I see billions (which this administration was honest enough to show on the books instead of spending the billions without even showing that it was being spent [what the hell is supplemental anyway?])flowing out the door, and coffins of brave , young Americans coming back, and no one can tell me the value of what we're doing.
You know what, I'm getting almost physically ill writing about this, so I'm signing off now. I may write again, and I may not.
You make it sound as if the rich just pocket that money and go home... Bill Gates employs over 53,000 Americans (and by the way that number was half as much when Bush took office). Take his money and he has to compensate some how. Want to take a guess how he'll do that? Never mind, let me help you...
ReplyDelete1) Fire Americans.
2) Send jobs over seas.
3) Raise prices.
Instead you would want the government to take his money and let them create the jobs. It's takes months for each bureaucratic hurdle to get cleared, only to dump it down to the next level to clear more hurdles with the state, and so on. How many shovel ready jobs did we create? Way less than 53,000. Predominately because there were NO shovel ready jobs.
We bought high way signs with our $800+ billion. What do you think a successful entrepreneur could do with that much money? Damn, what do you think a mediocre entrepreneur could do with it? A lot more than the government managed, I promise you. And they probably could have even given their employees health care that they EARNED.