INCOME INEQUALITY

INCOME INEQUALITY

 

What does that slogan mean?  Obvious is it not?  Rich people have more money than poor people and then there are those in the middle, trying hard, in some cases, to become rich.  The poor would probably settle for just being in the middle.

 

My assertion is that society has always been that way, at least since we started using money.  Actually even in barter trading societies, some had more to barter with than others.  The better hunters had more to eat than the lesser members, lesser at least in terms of being able to hunt.  When we moved to more stable communities those with the most or at least best land, grew more than others.

 

Human society has always entailed competition between other humans to get “more”, first for themselves, then for their families and later on for their communities.  In all cases the best “hunters” came out on top.

 

But that is not FAIR scream liberals.  The good hunters should give more to those that are not so good at hunting, gathering, growing, or producing things that others want to buy, with chickens (barter) or money.  Of course if half the tribe has nothing to eat and is starving and the other half has more than they can eat, some accommodation was reached, even in early societies.  Human compassion played a role as well.

 

But in those ancient societies who made the decisions of who gave what to whom.  In most cases it was the good hunters, the strongest members of the tribe.  Later on governments, the appointed tribal leaders made such decisions.  But who became such tribal leaders?  Why of course the best “hunters”.

 

Religions tried to make a difference in such inequity.  All religions promote “giving to the poor” and use religious institutions to do so.  But despite the dictates of the gods or God, such “charities” were never enough for the poor or those that in fact were not poor but wanted more for themselves.  Thus the struggle continued.  There was the occasional Spartacus, Robin Hood, a particular “church”, some other groups promoting good will and charity, but again for a very long time the inequity continued in human history.

 

Something changed in the world in the late 18^th Century.  Both the American Revolution and the French Revolution made dramatic change in how governments were to be formed and thus provided the ability to govern.  America’s way prevailed and the French receded back into chaos and Napoleon, the best “hunter” in all of Europe for a while.  A little later we had Hitler try his hand.  And of course there was Lenin and his crowd that tried to equalize the inequity.  And look how all that worked out for the societies being so lead and the world in general.  Would you want to have been a part of any of those societies?

 

Europe, post WWII decided to “split” the differences between total government control over distribution of wealth and “hands off” of such wealth distribution.  We thus saw the formation of social democracies, some call them flat out socialism, to determine wealth distribution.

 

Now look at Europe trying to figure out what to do next after about 50 years of experimenting with various forms of socialism.  Bottom line is that “grand experiment” is failing rather fast now and Europe is stuck between a very demanding and angry populous and leaders that have no idea where to find the money or productivity to quiet that anger.  Some simple economic laws (don’t spend more than you make) have begun their inevitable domination of such experiments, political and economic.

 

Anyone with any sense and understanding of at least modern history know full well that communism failed, miserably.  Now we see the approaching failure of socialism, in various forms, though some deny the inevitability of such ultimate failure.  Well my view for that latter group is just wait a few more years.

 

Where I ask today are the RICHEST societies in the world at least on a per capita basis.  Would you be surprised if I pointed to various Islamic countries such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia?  Following the dictates of the Koran those governments have GIVEN tremendous wealth to their populations.  EVERYONE is wealthy in such countries simply because of OIL.  And those governments have been able to afford to BUY the support of their various populations simply because of the wealth generated by oil.

 

Now that is a nice trick if one has enough oil wealth to pull it off.  But few have such intrinsic wealth just sitting there for the taking.  Most other countries have to WORK to produce their wealth and thus comes the big rub.  Who today is willing to work the hardest to grow and gain more wealth, nationally?  Might I suggest China and India for starters.

 

America charted a whole new concept in terms of achieving wealth.  It began with the idea that all men (and later women and slaves) begin the “race of life” equally and all are free to PURSUE happiness, which of course would include wealth.  Not too many really happy but impoverished people.  Religion tries to fix that point but always falls short in doing so.

 

America felt that government was to ensure the freedom and liberty of all Americans, so they could in fact pursue their own happiness, as long as it did not infringe on the happiness of others to a great degree.  For sure our founding documents NEVER suggested that government was responsible for wealth redistribution of any sort, initially.  Government ONLY kept the boundaries of liberty and freedom set wide enough for all men (later women and slaves) to pursue their own happiness.

 

And look what happened.

 

So what seems now, based on polls, to be the greatest concern of Americans?  Yep, the distribution of wealth.  The rich have too much and the poor and even the middle not enough, according to the poor and middle.  They want more and the rich don’t want to give it to them through at least the force of government.  Sounds sort of historical, does it not.

 

Well there is the real fight for the November 2012 of our next President.  And tonight we will hear how the current President and candidate to be the next one wants to go about redistributing wealth in America.

 

One side, the GOP has already said how they want to do so.  They want the traditional American way of unleashing the freedom and liberty of ALL Americans to pursue their own happiness/wealth.

 

But tonight we will hear, in so many words, why that is not good enough and thus the force of more government will be required to redistribute the wealth.  First question to ask as you listen tonight to the SOTU address is where in the Constitution is such power provided to the federal government, to redistribute wealth.

 

I KNOW, it is called promoting the “general welfare”.  My response is “general” means EVERYONE.  Sort of a rising tide lifts all boats type of approach.  Not many sailors amongst our Founders but most as well lived near the sea and thus would understand what is meant by such a modern saying.

 

And you know the really sad part of what we will hear tonight is nothing new.  President Obama’s approach has already been tried, in Europe on a grand scale.  He will not say it but what he will propose is for us to be “more like” Europe in terms of redistributing wealth to help the “poor”.

 

Over the past 50 years our country has moved, very slowly, to become more intent on redistributing wealth and now we have no more real national wealth to do what we still want to do.  And now we have a President that will push us even harder to redistribute more wealth so we can do more for the poor and middle class.

 

Whem he calls for us to do so, forget the Constitutional mandate to do it.  Just ask him where he will get the money to achieve his goals.  My view is the money is just not there no matter how rich we think we are as a nation.  And there are a few very strong “hunters” that will take their wealth elsewhere and do just fine in the taking, not matter what government tries to do, unless we elect Lenin to try for a while.

Tonight, the President will give us many anecdotes of the poor or middle that have paid a lot to the government in terms of percentage of income.  He of course will NOT talk in terms of absolute money provided to government, some 70% of all government income tax revenues from the rich.  Nor will he talk about the almost 50% that pay NOTHING to the federal government revenues collected by income taxes.  Nope, he will only focus on the “greedy rich” and call for their paying more to government in an attempt to redistribute wealth.

Well Mr. President, one of your potential competitors recently gave 15% of his wealth to charities.  Find a few liberals that can match that contribution, such as maybe you big gun, George Soros.  I would love to hear those statistics.

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