We all like to eat!

When a person or business succeeds, there is food on the table.  The more a person or business succeeds, the more food there is on more tables.  The previous two statements cannot possibly be true.  President Obama has said that the wealthy among us need to pay their fair share; why?  So more people can have food on their tables.  There you have it, if those who produce and provide the jobs which produce the stuff people want would just quit being so irresponsibly greedy, everyone would have more food on the table.  Hmmmm?  these two thought processes seem to be at odds with one another!  Which one is contained within the frame of reality and sustainability and which is framed in the illusion of smoke before a mirror?  Surely there is some source of evidence that could help a brother out with understanding which is better, isn’t there?    Absolutely, there is and it’s overwhelming!  The repository of this vast store of knowledge is about 3 thousand miles East of Washington D.C.  It’ s called Western Europe.

Now, before my 3 liberal friends jump on me about the Wall Street/Washington Siamese Twin connection, let me place your minds at rest.  The indistinguishable intentions of both Wall Street and Washington elites (politicians and lobbyists) are power and control, at any cost.   I’m talking about the vast majority of Americans who want to: eat, have a sense of control over their (usually very small) bit of the world and, take care of the most downtrodden among us and to believe their government is championing their right to run their lives the way that seems best for them.

What does the evidence suggest?  A very short story for illustration:  I had an acquaintance who once boasted of being injured while in England and receiving both excellent and FREE! medical care.  It just doesn’t get any better than that!  When I thought about that statement, I had to wonder, how does a doctor in England put food on his table?  How do the makers of the equipment, the dressings and medications the doctors used to fix my friends boo boo put food on their table?  And, what about the nurses and administrators of the clinic or hospital he used for free?  He never mentioned that any of them appeared either hungry or worse emaciated but if they work for free, is their food free too?  Then it dawned on me, it wasn’t free, someone must have paid for it and because it cost my friend nothing out of his pocket he only thought it was free!  Ah hah!  Who then, who was the benevolent dear that paid for his free care?  It turns out that most of Europe and England in particular has all their healthcare providers on the government payroll!  So, the government is the payer, right?  No.  In a single payer  system, the checks come from the government but, here it comes, wait for it…..Governments have no money because they do not produce anything!!!  Governments spend other peoples money which they take by taxing them!

Most countries have a document called a constitution or something similar.  That document usually outlines what the responsibility of the government is and what the relationship between the government and its subjects or population looks like.  In America, our constitution is very specific and severely limits the power of government over both individual states and individuals within the republic.  In the area of taxation, there are also very specific reasons Americans are taxed and those reasons are what have kept us from sliding into the financial quagmire Europe has created for itself, up until the last 60 or so years.

Because Europeans have allowed the thought process articulated by President’s from FDR to Obama to take root in their society, wealth is kept for the protected privileged and closely and very costly “managed poverty” is spread around to the rest.  The most recent and glaring example of the end game of the government-is-the-answer to everything  mind-set is Greece.  Governments corrupted by greed and unaccountability have made promises that can’t be kept and are under siege by angry people demanding their (man given) fix er, rights; violently if necessary because; they want to eat!  Yeah, but we aren’t as bad off as Greece.  Neither was Greece a few years ago!  Greece has a debt to GDP ratio of about 130%  America about 93% and projected to reach 140% within the next 20 years.  So, if you are (like me) a baby boomer, you could just ignore this issue, clamor for no changes to medicare, social security, or education and allow the much more expensive and less effective than ever before healthcare act  (Obamacare) to stand and leave the mess to your children but, if that’s the way you think, you wouldn’t have even read this far!!

We all like to eat and I want to select what I want to eat not have some government weenie do it for me, for my own good!  I want to run my small business because my customers and I like it not because it makes sense to anyone else.  I want you to do what makes you feel valuable and accomplished and I want the government to retreat to its constitutionally limited place in my life and yours and get out of the social and marketplace manipulation business!  I want to eat steak and lobster when I can afford it and I want lots of thriving businesses paying lots of people lots of money so they can too!