An economic morality tale

My mother forwarded this to me.

An economics professor made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A... After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

And people wonder why I'm a secessionist...

Eric Foner editorial in The Nation, February 11, 1991 (quoted by Thomas DiLorenzo in LewRockwell.com -- Prof. DiLorenzo's article is well worth reading, by the way):

In an editorial in the February 11, 1991 issue of The Nation magazine entitled "Lincoln's Lesson," Foner called the breakup of the Soviet Union, which at the time was being wildly cheered by freedom lovers everywhere, as "a crisis" that threatened the "laudable goal" of creating a system that demanded "overarching loyalty to the Soviet Union" while at the same time allowing separate republics to exist. No "leader of a powerful nation," Foner wrote, should allow such a thing as "the dismemberment of the Soviet Union."

He concluded that "The Civil War was a central step in the consolidation of national authority in the United States," which he of course views as a great event. One cannot adopt socialism – in the United States or anywhere else – without a highly centralized, monopolistic government. "The Union, Lincoln passionately believed, was a permanent government . . . and . . . Gorbachev would surely agree."

Well, President Gorbachev didn't agree, and on Christmas Day 1991, the Soviet Union was no more. Power is dangerous, especially when pursued for its own sake. If centralization is a necessary step to creating socialism, then it logically follows that we must decentralize to avoid it.

Virtual buckeye to Rebellion.

Look familiar?

Cartoon from the Chicago Tribune in 1934, but it could have been today. Look carefully at the plan of action in the lower left corner, and who is showing approval on the lower right corner. One writer has suggested that the character writing the plan of action appears to be Leon Trotsky.

Click on the image to enlarge.

Virtual buckeye to Rebellion.

The irony of history...

Now here's a little historical irony for you! From Pravda of all places:

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama. His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America ' s short history but in the world. If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe . These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all.

First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of
hundreds of billions of dollars. The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is. The world will only snicker.

The comment from Rebellion (to which a virtual buckeye is due):

The irony of this article appearing in the English edition of Pravda (Russian on-line newspaper) defies description. Why can a Russian newspaper print the following yet the American media can't/won't see it?