It seems that Reuters has gone way out on a limb and predicted that bailing out everyone and their mother may not be beneficial for the economy. I mean there may be some immediate reaction, but the long term response may not be what we’re looking for.
I find that hard to believe. When President Obama, a man with a lifetime of political service, fiscal policy work, working in the business world, studying business, studying economics, crafting powerful speeches and running for office tells me that giving fiscally reckless companies billions and billions of dollars will help them, he certainly must know what he’s talking about.
Unless his top priority is advancing agenda and moving us further and further down the road toward a nanny state, where government takes care of everyone. First, Big Brother will just get involved in the companies that are “too big to fail.” (NOTE: President Bush only made Obama’s job easier by getting this whole ball rolling and letting the new administration pin the process on him) Soon enough those companies just can’t get along without government dollars. Up next is health care. Everyone should have a right to government sponsored health-care, right? Jason, why don’t you want people to be able to go to the doctor? So everyone gets government health care (and the best doctors go somewhere else to work for more money and less hassle) and then Uncle Sam is paying for everyone’s health care, all the time. In order to pay for that though, taxes have to go up, first on the wealthiest 5%. Then the next wealthiest 5%. Before you know it, the national tax rate is 61%.
It’s bad policy after bad ideas. Nationalization is a bad idea and it doesn’t work. It didn’t work with AIG who is back for more of the public dole. It didn’t work for Bank of America. Shoot, it didn’t work for all of Britain.
It doesn’t work. Sound the alarm, ring the bells, keep pointing at it. When it goes down, say “I told you so.” Say it loudly, and tell people why.
Finally, I got this in my inbox today. Interesting story. Is it true? Can you really catch wild pigs like this? Whether you do or not, the principle works. You can never undo an entitlement program, no matter how ridiculous it may be.
Catching Wild Pigs
A chemistry professor in a large college had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Professor noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.
The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country’s government and install a new communist government.
In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, “Do you know how to catch wild pigs?”
The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. “You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again.. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in The last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.
Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.”
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America. The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc…. While we continually lose our freedoms — just a little at a time.
One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch!
