Raise Taxes, Soak the Rich!

The universal answer to every human problem, according to today’s left, is to raise taxes and soak the rich. My question is, does this work?

There are countries that have done this. Did they function well? Guess which nations did this absolutely? You got it.

The Soviet Union of Russia, the old East Germany, the old communist China, and today’s Cuba, among others. They all had the liberal dream of universal health care, low CEO pay, government funded education and so on.

What was the result? The worst economies in the history of the modern world. Poor agricultural output, stagnant industrial growth, and little or no scientific innovations. Their health care was among the worst in the world. Their educational systems produced few noted scholars.

At the same time, the United States of America, using capitalism, grew to be the largest economy in the world. Why?

The Apprentice Factor

I have watched Donald Trump’s The Apprentice since its beginning, just as a human interest phenomena. What you see on the show is that the contestants are willing to do just about anything to become Donald’s apprentice. Of course this means the chance to become a CEO for one of Trump’s businesses. This means a bright future with all the compensations of a CEO. Yes, this includes million dollar salaries and above, plus all the perks, like stock options and so on. All the evils that liberals hate.

click to show/hide the rest of the post

What’s the result? These people are willing to kill their mothers to win. Or, are they? What becomes apparent is that yes, they are willing to do almost anything—but that Trump will always “fire” them if they don’t demonstrate good character and fair play along the way, in addition to being competitive.

Does this happen in business too? Yes, of course. People who cheat their companies usually get found out and never rise to become CEO’s. Instead, most often, as in The Apprentice, the people who become CEO’s are the ones in a company who work the hardest, the longest, the cleverest, and with the best communication and political skills of anyone in the organization. They are almost willing to kill their mothers to get the job, but they restrain themselves to remain fair. Are they cutthroat? Yes, probably. Do they contribute to the wellbeing of the company? Yes, or they wouldn’t have risen to the heights they have.

American CEO’s often make 300 to 400 times the salaries of their workers. Is this too much? European and Canadian CEO’s make about 20 times the salaries of their workers. Is this better?

I don’t mind if we study the issue, so let’s do it. Which companies do better? The ones that pay their CEO’s outlandish salaries and perks, or the ones that pay them less?

Let me apply logic first. Then, I’m willing to peruse any studies that are out there, and I invite economists and experts to weigh in.

Again, what about the Apprentice factor? What would you be willing to do to earn 300 to 400 times what you are making now? Would you work nights and weekends? Would you try to be innovative? I think the answer is yes. You’d be willing to work your tail end off. Which is what happens. A worker in a communist country usually doesn’t work very hard because there’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. It doesn’t matter how hard they work, so why should they exert themselves more than is necessary to just survive?

The Post Office Factor

The same thing happens in American companies that have no great incentives to work hard, like the Post Office. These companies are often inefficient, with poor service, bad customer relations, and poor treatment of workers. Why do their workers “go postal?” killing their co-workers and bosses? Because they are treated badly, and work in a poorly functioning environment. Most post office workers do a good enough job, but few of them are busting their tails like the up and coming CEO’s of other American corporations.

Take away the outlandish CEO compensation of American corporations and you take away the Apprentice factor. What do you have then? The Post Office Factor. The liberal dream of a corporation. One giant Post Office.

Soak the Rich

Most people want to become rich, except for a few “saints.” If you give most people the winning lottery ticket, a small percentage of them will donate the money away to charity. The majority of us would keep almost all of the money.

Many of us are working hard to make more money, and the more money the better.

Most Americans, the more money they make, the more money they do wind up giving away anyway. The richest people usually do give the most to charity, as with Bill Gates.

Yet, the prevailing liberal philosophy is, if you do get rich, we want to confiscate your money. We don’t want to give you the choice. Just give it to us. We know better what to do with it; we are more generous than you are; and money in the hands of the government is much better than in your dirty, grubby fingers.

Government programs are the solution to all the world’s ills.

The extreme of this kind of thinking, again, is communism. A lesser extreme is socialism. An even lesser extreme is capitalistic socialism. The most “selfish” kind of economy is pure capitalism.

So, did Soviet Russia work? Or Communist China? No. They took all the rich peoples’ money away and gave it to the government. Everyone had free health care. That health care, again, was among the worst in the world. The people had barely enough food to eat.

What about lesser extremes? The socialists? Israel, for example, was a purely socialist country for many years. Everyone had free health care and so on. Here again, their economy was a mess, with stratospheric inflation, high unemployment and little growth. Then, they turned capitalistic, in the 1980’s, and their growth took off. The same thing is happening in China today. They are turning away from soaking the rich, turning away from communism and towards capitalism. The result? Their economy is booming. Everybody in China is benefiting. The workers on up to their CEO’s.

What about Europe? I’d like to hear from Europeans what it is like to live in socialistic countries. I know I had a girlfriend from London a few years back who broke her arm. She had to wait for months before she received proper treatment. This is what we’ll get with socialism and universal health care.

Problems with the U.S. Economy

The U.S. is the most successful economy in the history of mankind, and yet I know there are still problems. The distribution of wealth is always an issue. Again, why do C.E.O.’s make so much money and the workers so little? That’s why unions were invented. Yet unions have caused problems too. Unions have driven several airlines out of business, and American steel makers, and automakers, and on and on.

Globalization has hurt the common man/woman in America too. A cheaper labor supply overseas means lower wages here.

Plus, illegal immigration has provided another source of cheap labor that drives down wages. Everyone from construction workers to truck drivers make less money because of the abundant supply of cheap labor provided by illegal immigration.

Greedy CEO’s versus Lazy Bureaucrats

What is the solution? Take all the rich people’s money away, and become communist, or socialist? Again, those economies don’t grow very fast, have high unemployment, and provide lousy universal health care. Do we want that?

Raise the minimum wage? Maybe, but that hurts business, especially small business, and will mean fewer jobs.

I’d like a solution to a more even distribution of wealth, but I don’t want it to be the government stealing money and using it for programs that just enrich their administrators. Then, instead of rich, energetic CEO’s, we’ll have lazy, fat cat bureaucrats.

A Modest Proposal

Let me propose one kind of solution. It’s not confiscatory, and yet it forces companies to share the wealth. Let’s pass a law that every company over a certain number of employees be forced to sell a certain portion of its ownership to its employees. This percentage of ownership need not grow so large as to present a threat to the decision-making in the companies, but it will be large enough that the workers will have a share in profits. Then, their wages and profits will grow naturally, with the success of the company.

For example, just for argument’s sake, let’s say we create a pot of 10% ownership that is set aside for the employees. This means that employees can buy their share of this 10% as time passes. The pool of “owners” will grow with time, but the workers can also sell their shares too. Anyway, they’d be ahead of the game. They’d be getting their salaries plus this partial ownership of the company, maybe with dividends, maybe without.

Workable? I don’t know. I studied some economics in university and am a former stockbroker, but this stuff is still above my pay grade. I think ideas like this, though, are worth considering. This kind of idea seems better to me than merely stealing money from the rich with higher taxes. Give the money to the people, not the government. Plus, it’s not a giveaway. The workers buy their shares.

And, with this idea, you still have the Apprentice Factor, giving people the incentive to work hard. You aren’t stealing money from the rich, but you are sharing the wealth. Think about it. Economists, let me know if I’m on to something, or if the idea is half-baked. Liberals, go ahead and tell me why it’s better just to steal the money from the rich.

The Choices

Do you want Cuba, with its universal health care, or the United States of America, with its uneven distribution of wealth? Or Europe, with its high unemployment rate?

I’d choose the U.S., but I’d try to be innovative. Let’s find capitalistic-friendly solutions to health care and the distribution of wealth. Yes, this includes privatization, another liberal taboo. According to liberals, the government can always do things better than the people. They always know better than you what to do with your money. You aren’t fair, but trust them, they’ll take your money and give it to the poor. And the poor will invest that money wisely.

Rock’s Plan for Economic Prosperity

1. Keep the Apprentice Factor. It helps your company prosper.

2. Find a capitalistic-friendly way to share the wealth of your company.

3. Create capitalistic-friendly ways of providing an economic safety net for the poor, and health care for everyone.

4. Send every liberal to university for free to take basic economics courses, where they can learn how economies and money markets work.

The most effective measure of all would be point number 4. I’d vote for any initiative that would give this free education to all liberals, to everyone in the Democratic Party, and to any of the up-and-coming communists and socialists that we are breeding in our schools and universities. Send the professors to these courses too. I’ll even let you raise my taxes to pay for this free education.

Rock


(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)

Subscribe to my feed
                                          

Join me in the war on error, in the fight for truth, justice, and the American way! Support this site! Wanna swap links? It’ll help us both. Truth—The No Spin Politically Incorrect Zone

click to hide most of this post