Why do you feel socialism is bad?

[sidbrown]

From my point of view, property taxes are the same as rent. If you are paying $4,200 in property taxes and the house is worth $350,000, then the city must own your house. Why?

Who do you think really owns your house? You are paying rent (taxes) to the local government to the tune of $4,200 per year. If you do not pay the property taxes (rent), the local government will put your house up for sale at a sheriff’s auction.

Do you or the local government own the house? If the local government has the power to sell your house because you did not pay your house taxes (rent), then I think that the government must own your house.

Corporations are 39% socialist in terms of ownership. How can I say that? I looked at the income tax rates for corporations. All income over $100,000 is taxed at 39%. Therefore, the federal government owns 39% of every corporation. The federal has it right when they say that they want to be your partner in business.

What does stock ownership mean? It means that if you own 2% of the common stock of a company, you share in 2% of the income and 2% of the losses. The federal government shares in 39% of the income but does not share in the losses.

Keep in mind that the right to own private property is the cornerstone of economic freedom. Taxes are a major restriction on that economic freedom.

What are you advocating here? Is it to be no taxes and anarchy? What then will happen if you want some water to drink, or someone to take away the trash every week, or someone to call if your house is being robbed? Without government controls or sponsorship, the price of water can go sky high as was seen for example during the Katrina disaster.

 

[GodLovesTheSpek]

All this discussion about money, debt, stocks, taxes, possessions, earthly happiness. Satan roars with laughter as the deceived run about shouting “it’s mine” “no, it’s MINE”, “no, it’s ours”, “no, it’s theirs”, “no, it’s everyone’s” — followed by: “and we have the figures to prove it”.

What a huge waste.

The object in life is to get to Heaven and try to bring as many one can. If one is being mercilessly crushed in North Korea or blissfully happy in Sweden, neither situation is a guarantee of Heaven. Once the infinitesimal time of human life has expired, there will be a Final Judgment: Heaven or Hell for eternity. There will be no appeals, ideology, lawyers, doctors, debates, pundits, materials, money, wars, politicians, appeals, slick talk, crafty writing, constitutions or anything earthly that will change that Judgment. In the end: God Knows.

Try one’s best to live in the image of Christ, faithfully, obediently and lovingly as His church, The Catholic Church, teaches and, if worthy, then the shackles of the world will fall away and perfect happiness, Heaven, will be one’s final existence. Forever.

God bless on the journey.

 

[sidbrown]

All this discussion about money, debt, stocks, taxes, possessions, earthly happiness. Satan roars with laughter as the deceived run about shouting “it’s mine” “no, it’s MINE”, “no, it’s ours”, “no, it’s theirs”, “no, it’s everyone’s” — followed by: “and we have the figures to prove it”.

What a huge waste.

The object in life is to get to Heaven and try to bring as many one can. If one is being mercilessly crushed in North Korea or blissfully happy in Sweden, neither situation is a guarantee of Heaven. Once the infinitesimal time of human life has expired, there will be a Final Judgment: Heaven or Hell for eternity. There will be no appeals, ideology, lawyers, doctors, debates, pundits, materials, money, wars, politicians, appeals, slick talk, crafty writing, constitutions or anything earthly that will change that Judgment. In the end: God Knows.

Try one’s best to live in the image of Christ, faithfully, obediently and lovingly as His church, The Catholic Church, teaches and, if worthy, then the shackles of the world will fall away and perfect happiness, Heaven, will be one’s final existence. Forever.

God bless on the journey.

But should we not help people in need, such as we see in disasters that have been occurring recently?

 

[CPA2]

What are you advocating here? Is it to be no taxes and anarchy? What then will happen if you want some water to drink, or someone to take away the trash every week, or someone to call if your house is being robbed? Without government controls or sponsorship, the price of water can go sky high as was seen for example during the Katrina disaster.

God respects our freedom to choose. Therefore, I argue for economic and political freedom. There will always be a need for government. However, I want to return to the vision of government as held by Adam Smith and our founding fathers in 1776. That government was small and its function was that of an umpire.

Today’s government is out of control. It wants to be my partner and I want to get rid of my partner. I want to be free to choose. I no longer have that freedom. Instead, this government of ours follows the socialist philosophy of participating in our lives and economy. We cannot have political freedom if we do not have economic freedom.

The Catholic Church opposes socialism because it is not voluntary. Socialism is forced upon us by the government. Big government (socialism) is not the solution; it is the problem.

 

[CPA2]

Why do so many government programs fail? We’ve seen it time and time again. A need is identified, a program is formulated and put into place, everything starts out well enough, and then, perhaps over time, something happens. The program doesn’t achieve its goals. Or the amount of resources needed for it to achieve its goals are vastly more than expected.

We’ve seen this in Social Security, Medicare, the Great Society programs, and the public school system. Is it waste, fraud, and abuse (those favorite whipping-boys of legislators)? Welfare cheats? Incompetence? Just needs a little fine tuning? We’re not spending enough (no matter how much we seem to be spending)? I do not think so!

There is an assumption underlying all this that I don’t think holds: the assumption that spending more money necessarily correlates with better results.
Everything I’ve seen suggests, in fact, that spending is negatively correlated with outcomes. That is, the more spent per child, the worse the results.

There’s a name for this: Gammon’s Law:
Dr. Max Gammon was a British physician who sought to solve a public policy riddle: In the 1960s, the government spent significantly more on health care than it had previously, but the National Health Service didn’t seem any better for it. After an extensive study of the British system of socialized medicine, Dr. Gammon formulated his law: “In a bureaucratic system, increase in expenditure will be matched by fall in production.”
Dr. Gammon reasoned: "Such systems will act rather like ‘black holes,’ in the economic universe, simultaneously sucking in resources, and shrinking in terms of ‘emitted production.’ "

Milton Friedman has written this about the application of Gammon’s Law:
I have long been impressed by the operation of Gammon’s law in the U.S. schooling system: (name removed by moderator)ut, however measured, has been going up for decades, and output, whether measured by number of students, number of schools, or even more clearly, quality, has been going down.

The recent surge of concern about the rising cost of medical care, and of proposals to do something about it – most involving a further move toward the complete socialization of medicine – reminded me of the Gammon study and led me to investigate whether his law applied to U.S. health care. There clearly have been major advances in medical care in the past half century. Indeed, I would not myself be alive today if it were not for some of them. Yet the question remains whether these gains were promoted or retarded by the extraordinary rise in the fraction of national income spent on medical care. How does output compare with (name removed by moderator)ut?

Why does this happen? Does it have to happen? The short answer is yes, it does. Unfortunately for those who contemplate grand solutions to the geniune problems in the world. In a modern society the implementation of the kinds of plans we’re talking about here requires a bureaucracy. And Gammon’s Law is an intrinsic feature of bureaucracies.

Max Weber was the first student to consider bureaucracy seriously. Weber is a fascinating character. Quite a few of the ideas we take for granted e.g. work ethic, Protestant ethic (later applied to Japanese, Jews, and non-Christians), the state’s monopoly on the use of force, etc. all derive from Weber.

An official must exercise his judgment and his skills, but his duty is to place these at the service of a higher authority; ultimately he is responsible only for the impartial execution of assigned tasks and must sacrifice his personal judgment if it runs counter to his official duties.

Note that bureaucracies are not about outputs. They are about process. And it’s been known since Weber’s time that bureaucracies take on lives of their own. They’re like one-celled organisms. Their only objective is survival. And survival in a bureaucracy is not about output but about process.

There’s a kind of entropy in a bureaucracy: it becomes more and more organized and less and less work gets done. There are fewer outputs.
The urge to advance in one’s profession and to prosper is natural in human beings, human nature if you will. How does one advance or prosper in a bureaucracy? First, you must conform to the established processes. Second, you must rise in the hierarchy and have more people reporting to you. This explains the tendency of bureaucracies to grow over time. And the application of a little network theory should show you that this growth can be very fast, indeed.

It’s the simultaneous features of process, organization, and the tendency to grow that results in Gammon’s Law. And, since these features are intrinsic to bureaucracies, it’s inevitable.

But if we rely on the grand solutions we’d better be prepared for a lot of failure and to spend more than we can really afford.

---

 

[John_Pascendi]

It was Pope PiusX1 who condemned socialism for what it is…just a fancy word for a few wealthy elitists telling the rest of we peasants what,when and most scary…if IF even to do it…ie; free action. America was settled by europeons who left the heaven on earth of socialism…thats why when the US Constitution was framed not one of the founders would sign the thing until there were amendments added to protect the rights of the individual!..we call them…The Bill of Rights…and in a socialized nation…there aint no such a thing dude!!!.The word is a falsehood like communism…as if in Russia and China and Cuba all is for the 'common’good.The funniest lines in all history is the closing ones in Marxs communist manifesto and the points taken to take over a country…the last line reads…‘and the state will wither away’…yeh sure…a free people can vote itself into slavery,but a slave can NEVER vote him/her self free!!! Pas

 

[CPA2]

It was Pope PiusX1 who condemned socialism for what it is…just a fancy word for a few wealthy elitists telling the rest of we peasants what,when and most scary…if IF even to do it…ie; free action. America was settled by europeons who left the heaven on earth of socialism…thats why when the US Constitution was framed not one of the founders would sign the thing until there were amendments added to protect the rights of the individual!..we call them…The Bill of Rights…and in a socialized nation…there aint no such a thing dude!!!.The word is a falsehood like communism…as if in Russia and China and Cuba all is for the 'common’good.The funniest lines in all history is the closing ones in Marxs communist manifesto and the points taken to take over a country…the last line reads…‘and the state will wither away’…yeh sure…a free people can vote itself into slavery,but a slave can NEVER vote him/her self free!!! Pas

Amend! Unfortunately for us, Satan wants a one-world government and we are going along with Satan’s plan. Watch the value of the dollar. When the dollar becomes worthless, we will move towards a one-world currency.

Pray for Mary’s plan for peace.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Why do so many government programs fail? We’ve seen it time and time again. A need is identified, a program is formulated and put into place, everything starts out well enough, and then, perhaps over time, something happens. The program doesn’t achieve its goals. Or the amount of resources needed for it to achieve its goals are vastly more than expected.

-snip-

But if we rely on the grand solutions we’d better be prepared for a lot of failure and to spend more than we can really afford.

---

Awesome post!

 

[josephdavid]

Awesome post!

Questions: What was the poverty level and literacy levesl prior to 1964?

When was the last time the government could not make a SS payment?

Why are surveys showing that 90% of Massachusetts like their public health care system?

Why do 94% of seniors like Medicaid?

 

[qui_est_ce]

Questions: What was the poverty level and literacy levesl prior to 1964?

. Based on how much Federal $$ have been thrown at this, there should be no more poverty or illiteracy. Probably 25% of our work force is functionally illiterate and over 50% under poverty level. And they still quit because they demand that unless the manager respect them first, they will not give the manager respect.

When was the last time the government could not make a SS payment?

Why are surveys showing that 90% of Massachusetts like their public health care system?

Why do 94% of seniors like Medicaid?

SS and Medicare are bankrupt. We are borrowing money to fund our Federal budget as it is.

Because a select group of people like something is not reason to bankrupt the rest of the country.

 

[ComputerGeek25]

Questions: What was the poverty level and literacy levesl prior to 1964?

When was the last time the government could not make a SS payment?

Why are surveys showing that 90% of Massachusetts like their public health care system?

Why do 94% of seniors like Medicaid?

SS and Medicare are unsustainable, to the point where many may not be able to cash in.

 

[josephdavid]

SS and Medicare are unsustainable, to the point where many may not be able to cash in.

That is because over the past 30 some years (probably more) our government keeps taking from the “kiddy” to pay for other things such as wars, etc. Ironically the only sound idea I liked from VP Gore (i.e. “The Lock Box”).

The money that we pay should go directly towards payments to the elderly who need it. Also raise the retirement age up to perhaps 70. If you want to retire earlier then citizens need to make sound investment / saving decisions to suppliment their income.

But you have not answered my question. When was the last time the U.S. government missed a social security payment or a payment to a doctor?

 

[josephdavid]

. Based on how much Federal $$ have been thrown at this, there should be no more poverty or illiteracy. Probably 25% of our work force is functionally illiterate and over 50% under poverty level. And they still quit because they demand that unless the manager respect them first, they will not give the manager respect.
.

In 1964 the Laws President Johnson signed cut the poverty levels in half. Public education took our literacy levels to 90%.

But you will never totally eliminate poverty in the U.S. There are so many variables that cause poverty but state, federal government can help soften the blow while they try to keep their feet up. Welfare in the sense of food stamps, federal housing, not including education equals 14% (versus 27% for 1st world country like Germany). Including education it equals 19% of GDP ($45 billion on Education). All the while we spend more on our Military Industrial Complex more than on our own infrastructure and people ($637Billion on standard budget and .

You really want to curb the stress this causes on our budgetary spending? Hold your government and big business responsible and accountable for sourcing out jobs. You want some one not to have to be on welfare, support businesses that promote living wages for their employees. I do not see the Catholic Laity expressing much angnst over these unfair trade pacts with Communist China or other 3rd world countries which exploit their workers in unsafe working environments.

I do not see the Catholic Laity protesting these executives who dig into profits to fill their own wallets, and give themselves raises year all the while cutting payrolls and/or laying off people and shipping the work to countries like China. When they lay off people. Who pays for the costs to make sure those out of work families have means to feed themselves and their children while they search for new work? You and I do.

 

[tjm190]

But you have not answered my question. When was the last time the U.S. government missed a social security payment or a payment to a doctor?

They don’t miss payments because they have an essentially infinite amount of money they can borrow- or print.

 

[josephdavid]

They don’t miss payments because they have an essentially infinite amount of money they can borrow- or print.

We all have money taken out of our payrolll essentionally to fund SS. However we need to stop the Government from taking out of SS to fund other programs. This has caused huge problems. Similar to businesses that steal from pensions.

Also possibly raising the retirement age.

 

[qui_est_ce]

In 1964 the Laws President Johnson signed cut the poverty levels in half. Public education took our literacy levels to 90%.

Are you sure that it was Lyndon Johnson’s policies that caused drops? The public schools in the City of St. Louis spend One indicator of poverty is children born to teen-ages and out of wedlock mothers. That number has sky-rocketed since 1975.

I have a fairly decent job, own a home, and can support myself and my two children. I qualify for EIC.

Here are some statistics from my city:
According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, state and local taxpayers pay a statewide average of $9,338 for each student attending Missouri’s public schools. **In 2008, taxpayers spent an average of $15,549 for each child attending Saint Louis public schools, and $15,142 for each child attending Kansas City public schools. Taking Saint Louis as an example, consider that all but the most expensive private schools in the city charge tuition that ranges between $5,000 and $14,000. **Thus, private schools tend to be able to provide educational services for significantly less than it costs Saint Louis public schools to offer their services. The same could be said for private schools in communities all over the state.

Can you imagine how much that adds up PER CHILD???

I sent my children to Catholic schools.

stltoday.com | Read St. Louis, MO and Missouri breaking news. Get latest news, events and information on Missouri sports, weather, entertainment and lifestyles.

Read breaking news for St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area, weather, traffic, crime, sports, entertainment, politics, and more on www.stltoday.com.

www.stltoday.com

12/12/2008

Nearly a fourth of the high school students in St. Louis Public Schools dropped out last school year, according to data to be released by the state today.

districtadministration.com/newssummary.aspx?news=yes&postid=51507

 

[josephdavid]

Are you sure that it was Lyndon Johnson’s policies that caused drops? The public schools in the City of St. Louis spend One indicator of poverty is children born to teen-ages and out of wedlock mothers. That number has sky-rocketed since 1975.

I have a fairly decent job, own a home, and can support myself and my two children. I qualify for EIC.

Here are some statistics from my city:
According to the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, state and local taxpayers pay a statewide average of $9,338 for each student attending Missouri’s public schools. **In 2008, taxpayers spent an average of $15,549 for each child attending Saint Louis public schools, and $15,142 for each child attending Kansas City public schools. Taking Saint Louis as an example, consider that all but the most expensive private schools in the city charge tuition that ranges between $5,000 and $14,000. **Thus, private schools tend to be able to provide educational services for significantly less than it costs Saint Louis public schools to offer their services. The same could be said for private schools in communities all over the state.

Can you imagine how much that adds up PER CHILD???

I sent my children to Catholic schools.

stltoday.com
12/12/2008

Nearly a fourth of the high school students in St. Louis Public Schools dropped out last school year, according to data to be released by the state today.

districtadministration.com/newssummary.aspx?news=yes&postid=51507

Not everyone can afford a private school.

So you say then just abolish the whole system? Then what? Again not everyone can afford private schooling. See how that works in Africa.

What is your solution then? If you say the public school system is broken and you do not like spending money it then what is your solution?

 

[sidbrown]

God respects our freedom to choose. Therefore, I argue for economic and political freedom. There will always be a need for government. However, I want to return to the vision of government as held by Adam Smith and our founding fathers in 1776. That government was small and its function was that of an umpire.

Today’s government is out of control. It wants to be my partner and I want to get rid of my partner. I want to be free to choose. I no longer have that freedom. Instead, this government of ours follows the socialist philosophy of participating in our lives and economy. We cannot have political freedom if we do not have economic freedom.

The Catholic Church opposes socialism because it is not voluntary. Socialism is forced upon us by the government. Big government (socialism) is not the solution; it is the problem.

What you are advocating is dangerous and would lead to anarchy and war and death. People would be hurt. For example, if a few people got control of the water supply and they could charge whatever they wanted and turn off or turn on the water when they wanted to. In fact, something like this happened when Enron got control of the electric supply and the electricity was turned off at many schools at different times thus disrupting the educational process.
Further without governmental controls on who works in the factories, we could have a return to children working 80 or 90 hours per week.

 

[josephdavid]

What you are advocating is dangerous and would lead to anarchy and war and death. People would be hurt. For example, if a few people got control of the water supply and they could charge whatever they wanted and turn off or turn on the water when they wanted to. In fact, something like this happened when Enron got control of the electric supply and the electricity was turned off at many schools at different times thus disrupting the educational process.
Further without governmental controls on who works in the factories, we could have a return to children working 80 or 90 hours per week.

I agree with you Sid.

Another example is look what happened here in Chicago. The city sold off all the parking and parking meters to a private company and they immediately raised all the parking rates by 100%!

CPA forgets to quote where Adam Smith talks about government and business responsibility in the market place.

 

[sidbrown]

I agree with you Sid.

Another example is look what happened here in Chicago. The city sold off all the parking and parking meters to a private company and they immediately raised all the parking rates by 100%!

CPA forgets to quote where Adam Smith talks about government and business responsibility in the market place.

Imagine having to pay $5 for a glass of water.