In February, college sophomore Trevor Hill stood up during a televised town hall meeting in New York and posed a simple question to Nancy Pelosi, the leader of the Democrats in the House of Representatives. He cited a study by Harvard University showing that 51% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 no longer support the system of capitalism, and asked whether the Democrats could embrace this fast-changing reality and stake out a clearer contrast to right-wing economics.I can only guess that Trevor and even the author of the column do the breathing thing, and I further assume that their feet were on the ground .... however it seems questionable if their "heads are there to move them around" -- although I'm sure he is smarter than a college freshman.
Assuming this, they are also subject to the effects of markets -- and government, which they conveniently fail to talk about. The US economy was definitely "mixed". The BOistan economy is about as "capitalist" as a casino in Vegas. It is rigged to allow DC which our founders would have thought would be full of "servants" to be the wealthiest area in the country to win, just like "the house" in Vegas. It can't be otherwise -- if you don't MAKE, you have to TAKE -- in Vegas from your gambling patrons, in the case of government from the citizens and future citizens.
There are a set of things in the universe that "just are" -- they aren't "good or bad", they ARE! Accepting the reality of what IS can be hugely helpful, both personally and societally -- it is like having basic clue on reality. (a REALLY high bar for 18-29 year olds!)
Therefore, "Government" is IN the market system as well, as everything/everyone is, and obviously has to be. The government takes resources from some parts of the economy, takes a portion for themselves, and gives to others to protect and expand their interests through buying/selling goods, votes, benefits, taxes, just as all of us do. The big difference between government and the rest of the market is that it never produces anything -- it only moves resources around. It is a bit like the financial sector, but with no profit motive, and FAR fewer controls. (
The government MAKES the rules, and decides where, when, and on whom they will be enforced -- very rarely will the government itself, or any of it's favored friends -- Democrats, media, unions, higher education ... but I'm just repeating myself.
Before BOistan, there was a nation called the United States. That nation had a magical thing called LIMITED government. There were checks and balances as well as Constitutional restrictions (that nation actually followed a written constitution) on how powerful the government could become.
These restrictions were modelled after markets. When there is a huge need for a product, the price goes up and more providers start to provide that product causing the price to go down until there is a "balance" where price provides a constant indicator to the market as to how much to provide. If there were really big needs, the government could get things like "2/3 majorities" or "Constitutional Amendments", but otherwise it had to live with it's limits.
Government got rid of the limits, so it is now like the Mob entering a market. The market is STILL "a market", it is just "black / corrupt / criminal" -- like the market for drugs in prison. Let's take healthcare as an example -- first The Mob (government) decides who can play in the market through licensing, regulation, fees, taxes, etc. Then they execute "pay-offs" -- certain groups, say unions, elderly people, the poor, doctors, etc are "paid off" ... provided "protection", or "deals", with at least the tacit assumption that they will support the Mob (government / Democrats). Some are provided lucrative deals -- like the doctors and the lawyers. Since most of the politicians are also lawyers , it helps to think of lawyers as highly paid hit men. Usually they just financially destroy you -- but if they have to, prision, and even the death penalty is in their power.
Sometimes other "protection rackets" rise up -- to provide "insurance" for a price. In the medical crime area we call it "insurance" (wink, wink). There is usually an uneasy peace with the various insurance providers -- the Mob (gov) would like to have ALL the action, but given proper kick-backs, cover, etc, they see it as beneficial for the "insurers" to have a piece of the action.
Mobs (gov) tend to be greedy. Where individuals formerly went to a doctor who dealt with their problem one on one with minimal mob/gov oversight, good doctors that provided good service at a good price were successful, and bad doctors found other employment.
As gov/mob increasingly entered the picture, certifications, costs of entering the profession, limits on how many doctors there could be, regulations, taxes, fees, records, kickbacks, requirements for increasingly expensive "insurance" (mobs breed mobs), etc grew without bound -- more and more players desire a piece of the action, and since the gov/mob is getting pay-offs from all of them, they encourage that generally non-productive (for us, VERY productive for them) "growth".
"The Real Problem" always comes down to human nature -- we tend to fall into believing that "someone else will solve our problems" -- and the "someone else" in this mortal coil always becomes corrupt and creates greater problems than what they were supposedly solving. Eventually economic collapse, violence, poverty, hopelessness, etc result because the "Real Problem" is **US**!!!!!
If that wasn't bad enough, look at the people who the article is listening to -- Americans 18-29! The eternal fount of a lot of things -- wisdom definitely not being one of them!!
You will always see the "mob/government" trying to increase the set of people who support them, which will always mean things like surveying younger people, lowering voting ages and reducing any sort of restriction on voting (citizenship, ID, etc), because while there is indeed a "sucker born every day", as the suckers age, some of them learn by experience and become aware adults -- no matter how much the gov/mob works to prevent that, however, the encouragement to dependence becomes ever stronger.
FICA, Medicare, Welfare, low income housing, etc, etc all seek to make a greater and greater percentage of people dependent on the government, and both intentionally and unintentionally weakening family, church and local community.
As we saw in the USSR, are starting to see in China (Hong Kong riots, Corona), North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, the "dream" (nightmare) of socialism rises until if fails massively and people are reduced to living by the raw "survival of the fittest" -- and then the natural mechanism of ACTUAL Capitalism (not corrupt crony capitalism) arises, wealth /' culture / religion result, and the cycle begins again.
Since most people find history boring, we get to repeat it with war, starvation, corruption, etc at various levels of horror -- the "fruits" of our fallen nature.
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