Promises that can’t be kept
By John Long
A man once operated a successful ice cream parlor on a bustling Main Street corner. He did a good business and made it a point to give some of his profits away to charitable causes. But, after a time, he decided he wanted to travel and enjoy life, so he hired a manager to oversee and improve operations while he was gone.
Long is a Roanoke Times columnist and director of the Salem museum.
January 3, 2013 - 7:58 AM
An army of scarecrows.
Maybe Mr. Long should take up farming.
In his best nasally Howard Cosell voice..”Just telling it like it is.”
I don’t think he is remotely “telling it like it is”. I think he is telling it as right wingers see it. No doubt about that at all.
Oh really Sandi??? Please tell us which part is untrue. Is it that entitlement programs don’t need reform..the $16 trillion in debt ..or that spending cuts need be made..
“Just what isn’t so, Sanderoo?”
What is inaccurate about it Sandi? You just don’t believe we will ever have to pay the debt and apparently you are okay with punishing the “evil” rich for being successful, just as the French President thinks the rich should have to donate %75 of their income to the government. However, what about Mr. Long’s commentary is inaccurate. Under this Kinder, gentler deficit based spending spree, we are quickly turning from a society who thinks the government should work for the people to provide the things that an individual can’t realistically provide for himself to a society who believes that the people should instead work for a bloated government that will provide the basic things that individuals could provide for themselves but choose not to. Government for the people or people for the government, which is better?
Well okay, but remember you insisted…
I think his insulting analogy that it is the benefits that create the poor and needy is not remotely the fact of the matter. America still has plenty of successful and thriving business on “bustling Main Street corner” and the horrid burden of helping the people who need it does not diminish much less put asunder that truth.
The analogy also falls apart in that America has always had a representative government, no one relinquished anything to some “manager”; unless you count lobbyists. No they have never, not from day one, been perfect, but they were elected and we keep doing it. The situation we find ourselves in took decades and decades of representatives being far from perfect.
No one started helping the poor, elderly, disabled and unemployed to “gain business” as some marketing ploy. We did that because it is the kind of world we want to live in. It is also not a system that “the poorer you are, the more ice cream you could get”.
The deficit grew immensely when we started two wars and paid for neither, when we gave Medicare an even bigger boon, and when we cut taxes (meaning revenue) when we needed it most. Not one damnable poor leech just looking for free “ice cream” caused those realities! Nor did they cause the economic crash and near depression we suffered and are still recovering from.
I am so sick and tired of the self-righteous right wing claiming we are buried by our needy. That our needy are not needy enough and that we would be better off if we did not help people.
Maybe we would be better off if more jobs paid a wage people could be self sufficient on. Maybe the CEO to worker imbalance being bigger than ever is not a good thing.
Maybe we would be better off if our medical system did not cost almost twice that of others with no better results.
Maybe we would be better off if wars were paid for while being fought.
Maybe we would be better off if we did not bribe industry and business to hire, locate, create and prosper.
Maybe we would be better off if we did not create entanglements and bureaucracies and then whine about them.
Maybe we would be better off if corporate welfare was as scorned as helping poor people.
And finally the idea that the rich will stop buying, that the entrepreneurs will stop risking their ventures, that investors will weigh a 3% tax against a 97% profit, that an independent mind will shackle itself rather than risk effort, is also insulting.
The national debt was not a quick creation and neither will the solution to it be an easy ride. But blaming poor people and “confiscation” is pedestrian, ignorant and unfair IMO.
The truth is that we could indeed “tax our way out of the mess politicians of both parties have made”. It is not necessary, but it could be done over time, just as the balanced approach of taxes, spending cuts and reforms can. There is no proven need for “Dire spending cuts have to be made and major entitlement reforms instituted” and that is just the plain unvarnished truth. The right wingers are using the economic collapse, the sluggish recovery and the frightened by rhetoric nation to gain what they have salivated after for years, the decimation of the safety nets that keep our fellow Americans from living in total privation and suffering.
That is the “confession” none of them will make.
Very few think that we should abandon our poor. The problem is that most of us see people abusing the system. We want some kind of checks & balances to get rid of the “freeloaders” not the real people in need. No offense Sandi buy you need to get out in the real world with the rest of us & see whats really going on.
Jeeze, you’d think that people would have learned by now that ANY comment concerning cutting spending equates to “You hate poor people”.
His insulting analogy made it crystal clear what he (like most right wingers) thinks of the poor. I did not do that, he did.
You could have conversations about “spending cuts” 24/7 and not need to be insulting about it. Well, right wingers cannot, but the rest of us could.
Darren, I appreciate that you believe I live in an “ivory tower” but I am in “the real world” 24/7. I am working class and I see those same people that a lot of you determine are “freeloaders” and I think that you are wrong. If you know someone is abusing the system, you should report that to your local Social Services Department.
Some right wingers also call government paid workers “freeloaders” and “leeches” too. It is sometimes hard to know what your code language is really saying.
As I said, I fully support a balanced approach of taxes, spending cuts and reforms. I just refuse to wallow in the dismissive, arrogant and unenlightened analogies of the poor as “freeloaders” always wanting “more ice cream”. When almost NEVER does one of you mention the corporate welfare problem this nation has also created.
Any body see less mpney in thier check so we can pay for more social programs instead of the debt. Hope you can make ends meat. Now my prices will go up to customers which means your prices at home will rise. Like I said you cant tax a business and sure not taking away our check. Our company will get thiers riding on your backs.
Herb, can you please make up your minds? The FICA taxes went back to normal so we can be paying for the SS/Medicare working stiffs hope to collect on. Do you “hate” old people or want your benefits cut because we would not pay them?
Let us control our own s/s medicare with allowing us to invest it.
I think I know better then this socialist govt does how to spend my money. I dont hate old people just the ones that use the system which I have a few in the family that has abused it until I reported it.
Family or no family, dont abuse it.
Sandi, got a question. Do you think it is fair for someone on disability and getting more money from the govt then it is for someone getting s/s that has worked thier whole life? It is happening right now.
I think in the game of life, being disabled is a terrible burden to have and I cannot think of how else to handle the people who are. What is your solution for the disabled, widowed and orphaned?
@12 Herb, please see this link:
http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2012/12/what-is-money.html
You say, “Let us control our own s/s medicare with allowing us to invest it. I think I know better then this socialist govt does how to spend my money.”
I wish I had time to fully explain this but I don’t so I’ll make a short (hopefully), probably incoherent explanation.
All of the economy is simply a transfer of money for goods. If you work at Macy’s, you get your paycheck and spend it at Target while the Target employee takes that money and spends it at Macy’s. And then, the process begins again.
The same is true of S/S. You pay yours in and it’s immediately transferred to those on SS. There is no savings account (although there are IOUs at the treasury because payroll taxes have been subsidizing income taxes for some time now). It’s simply a transfer of payments.
If you “invest” your money somewhere other than SS, you’re transferring your money to someone else. Again no savings. When you do this, you’re hoping that in the future, someone else will transfer their money to you and you’re really, really hoping they’ll transfer more than you did.
Same applies to SS. You’re hoping future workers will transfer their money to you.
I can’t tell you which method is more likely to be there in the future to transfer money to you but it seems to me, SS is the more secure route. In part, because we can vote for our representatives (those who control the money ultimately).
Sandi,
I never said it was not terrible. But why are they drawing more income then someone that ahs worked all thier life. I have a big issue with that.
One of the problems I have with this analogy is that it’s presented as one producer with others coming there solely to get ice cream. A better analogy would be a block party where everyone brings some ice cream and also make some during the party. The govt. just helps organize its distribution.
I thought that disability was like Social Security in that there are earnings tables established for how long you worked and how much you paid into the system with minimum and maximums at each end. Unless the disabled person was making way more money than the retired person, I am not sure how they get “more income then someone that ahs worked all thier life“.
I can tell you for a fact Sandi, My uncle that was so called disabled when he was 45..gets more then my father that worked all his life including military retiree. My uncle gets around 1500.00 per month my father 1200.00. Thats BS. If I were to go on disabilty now get more now until my death at whatever age then I would get in s/s at 65.
Thats a fact and I have proof.
17. The proble with that analogy is that you have a great amount that dont want to bring any or make any at the block party because they know they are going to get some ice cream and not have to do anything for it.
Can you say 30 mill to 47 million.
Easy Herb, no one has called you a liar, or asked for any “proof” of what you say. Regardless of the amounts, do you know for a fact that your father earned more money in his working career? Do you know if military income or benefits are considered in the equation? You are awfully touchy. If you did not want to discuss it, why did you bring it up?
I “can tell you for a fact” that my understanding of disability is that they take into consideration what your income level was, how much property you own, how many vehicles you own, as well as your living expenses because I recently helped someone out with gathering such information to submit. How that all plays out and who runs the “fairness” meter I cannot say. I also know that someone I have no reason not to believe recently got disability, (in her late 50′s) but because she never worked more than an odd public job here or there, and was a stay at home wife until her divorce, gets only 432 dollars per month in disability payments to “live on”. There are plenty of people NOT getting 1200 or 1500 dollars per month. My 72 year old mother for another one.
Yes I do know that my father earned more. Considering he ritered at 39 from the military and went to work for a baltimore ship yard making I cant tell you how much. Enough to buy an ocean front home. My Uncle didnt come close to what my dad made…so I have know idea…I understand the divorce situation. I dont know how that would work. I would be the same as my mother. She was always stay at home mom, but she can take my dads military retirement if anything happens. That is the problem with females in thier mid to late 60′s. They didnt have to work. but we are not comparing apples to apples here. i am talking about 2 men both work,then one disabilty, but now works on the side which bothers me, and he makes more in disbility then my dad. Thats the point I make.
cant spell today.
@20 Herb, I feel stupid writing this in terms of ice cream. It’s not cutesie any more.
You are undoubtedly right some would like free ice cream. However, I’d like to point out that those who don’t make the ice cream don’t get a lot of ice cream. Those that make the ice cream get more ice cream. Those that own the ice cream making machines and ingredients but don’t actually make the ice cream get the most ice cream.
And just to carry this craziness further yet, it turns out there aren’t enough ice cream making jobs to go around. And if there aren’t enough jobs making ice cream, shouldn’t the people who want to make ice cream get some? There are people who want to make ice cream but can’t. Shouldn’t that be worth some ice cream?
15 – Scott, what would happen if there was no such thing as money?
For those that are interested, Larry Hamelin, the Barefoot Bum, has written a response to John Long’s commentary from Thursday.
http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2013/01/promises-that-can-be-kept.html
@25 89Hoo asks, “what would happen if there was no such thing as money?”
The short term and easy answer is “We would invent it”. Never said it wasn’t useful.
In the long term, we don’t need it and maybe will eventually outgrow it but that would take a lot of socialization (meaning common understanding of goals – like don’t litter) and education.
I know I’ve used this example before but let’s use it again.
Have you seen that movie Wall-E? There’s at least one scene where the Earth survivors are gliding around on their chairs, their every whim catered to by the machines. Ask yourself this. Do they use money?
Consider: They’re not producing anything so they’re not trading anything. Instead, items are just produced for them. Production equals consumption. I suspect they don’t use money.
Sometimes, you can learn interesting things at the extremes. Consider the Laffer Curve. No one has any idea what it’s shape is, but we know how it behaves at the end points. With a tax rate of zero, no taxes are collected. With a tax rate of 100%, no taxes are collected. Somewhere between those two points is some optimum.
As automation increases and individuals can produce more with less personnel, it’s not likely but it’s conceivable we could eventually come to a point where one person runs all the machines that produce everything. At that point, only one person has income and everyone else is unemployed. What do you do? Is money necessary?
Looking at this another way, if we wanted full employment, that person running all the machines would work one day in their life and someone else another day and so on. You could think of it as redistributing leisure instead of redistributing money.
This raises the question, how much unemployment is “ideal”? Maybe what we should do it is decrease the number of hours to be considered a full-time job. If we had a 30 hour work week, the current unemployed would have positions open up to work at because the job still needs to be done.
Money is not the problem. Greed and avarice are the problem. Always has been, always will be. Greed and avarice know no socio-economic boundary; only in degree is there any real difference.
#28 – Why is it that wanting to take money away from the producers of society and give it to the non-producers is not being greedy, yet wanting to keep what you earn is?
@29 Michael, I know we often disagree but please take a moment to consider things upside down for a moment.
If you work at say a manufacturing plant that someone else owns, the employees are the producers but because of our notion of what is proper ownership, the products made and money earned from their sale belongs to the owner.
That is precisely why I am against capitalism. It takes from the producers and gives to the non-producers (employee -> owner).
If you’re referring to taxes though, I prefer to think of that not as a taking but as a contribution that benefits us all.