Bad news Brown / Socialism

The government released 'their' budget a few days ago. You may be thinking that I missed the boat on this and your probably right, but if I spent all my time immediately responding to bad news I wouldn't get much else done.

So, the government have got into quite a mess with the heavy borrowing to 'save the banks / economy', as though they or anyone else has a clue about saving the economy. The way to do this is apparently raiding the pensions of the most productive people in society and redistributing that 'taxed' money. This will have little effect on me or the vast majority of people in the UK, but I for one won't be feeling warm and fuzzy inside that now even the rich can't escape the huge tax burden placed on us by the government - yes the government, the banks don't have the power to borrow money on our 'behalf' and then tax us. We aren't dying from the disease we are dying from the cure.

This diktat from our masters will roll out across the country to little opposition. I mean they could have said 100% tax, £10 on the price of a pint of ale etc. So, I was thinking about 'lines in the sand', what would be your 'line in the sand'? I mean what would be the issue that made you think, hang on sec, I don't agree with that and I'm not going to obey? Examples, of 'lines in the sand' in the past have been 'Poll Tax', 'Peasants' Revolt' etc. I think its important to consider whether you believe a government could ever over burden the 'governed' through taxation, and what, if anything would you do?

I think what lies at the root of the current problems is that we don't allow anyone to succeed and fail, which is the opposite of capitalism. When the banks were having problems we stepped in, no doubt for good reasons, could we let the banks collapse taking with them all the money that people had deposited? Its a difficult decision, no doubt, but the government stepping in means that the banks haven't learned their lesson. They know now that any mistakes they make will not ultimately impact them but instead will punish all of us. Now even the car companies want money, claims being made that they are 'too big' to fail. Its amusing to me when on the news they talk about the 'British car industry' going through hard times, and that the government should step in. Pretty much every industry is suffering at the moment, and its basically the market trying to correct itself. For example, the car companies just made too many cars, they gambled there would be a demand and unfortunately there isn't. It was a gamble that went wrong, but that's capitalism. So, now we must pay out of our pocket to prop them up. I wonder if in the past the horse shoeing companies went to the government and asked for bailout money because 'ever since this darn thing the car came out we just haven't been selling many horse shoes'?

This is a story - not my own, very anecdotal I must admit, but highlights the mentality that we are encouraged to buy into in order to justify forced equality.

'An economics professor of a University said he had never failed a single student before but had, once, failed an entire class. The class had insisted that 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 socialism.

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. But, 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.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame, name calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for anyone else. All failed to their great surprise and the professor told them that socialism would ultimately fail because the harder to succeed the greater the reward but when a government takes all the reward away; no one will try or succeed.'

Now, there is a moral to this story. That moral is...well I could tell you, but you have a mind try to work it out...