ARGH!!! SHOW ME WHERE THE RIGHT TO PRIVACY IS IN THE CONSTITUTION!!! IT'S NOT!!!! A BUNCH OF INTERPRETATIONIST JUDGES "FOUND" IT SOMEHOW.
SHOW ME WHERE THE US CONSTITUTION SAYS WE HAVE A CONSTITUTIONALLY-MANDATED RIGHT TO PRIVACY.
YOU CAN'T!!!!! IT IS NOT A POWER GIVEN TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT - EITHER EXECUTIVE, LEGISLATIVE, OR JUDICIAL. AND WHAT DOES THE CONSTITUTION SAY ABOUT POWERS THAT AREN'T GIVEN TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT?
(waiting patiently while the nerds among you google the constitution)
As I see it, all other powers not given to the Fed are reserved for the states. That means that a strict interpretation of the US Constitution says that STATES get to decide about abortion. The Founders meant for the States to be individual laboratories of democracy. The ones that do something that works really well, well, they can be copied by other states if they choose to do so.
The Constitution isn't hard to read. It isn't legalese like we have today. It's straightforward, and simple to figure out. It seems like most Americans don't even know what this most AWESOME, INCREDIBLE document really says. People died so we would have it. I think that if more peeps sat down and just read our Constitution, there would be a great outcry against the tyranny of socialist liberal thought. Against interpretationist judges who "legislate from the bench". When a judge "interprets" what the Constitution says and changes what it means, that judge is circumventing the checks and balances imposed on the judiciary branch. Well, you'd have to read the Constitution to know how the judicial branch works, and how it is kept in check by the other branches.
GO AND READ YOUR CONSTITUTION, FELLOW AMERICANS!!!
The uninformed electorate will be America's downfall. Or at least, it will contribute to it. If we continue down a path of socializing our economy, even while the great socialist experiments of the 20th century turn to capitalism, albeit slowly - what does that say about us?
Socialism doesn't work. When you start taking wealth from the "wealthy" and give it to the "needy", it imposes several negative pressures on the economy.
1) The upper income level peeps have less money to invest, whether in new businesses, expanding a business, investing in stocks, or bonds (which help fund our deficit spending, ha ha). So that has a negative impact on increasing opportunities for workers - fewer new businesses or less expansion of existing businessess = less jobs. Bad.
2) The recipients of the income redistribution then have an incentive not to get a job. Not to better themselves, not to become a contributing sector of our society. Bad.
3) Not only that, but welfare (sorry, I mean "spreading the wealth") means a sizeable sector of our labor market is de facto-ly (is that a word?? It is now) taken out of comission. Instead of contributing to society (by working), they are a drain on the economy.
4) The wealth taken from the upper class is given to the lower class. They, in turn, spend it on goods and services. So in that vein, yes, there are some positive aspects to wealth transfer. BUT: the negatives outweigh the positives. Money circulates in our economy. As the upper class spends their wealth by investing in businesses (like starting a new one or expanding an old one), the money they spend falls into the hands of various entities: labor (meaning employees), suppliers (for the business), and others. This money then, in turn, flows from the labor market back to other businesses, as employees buy things for consumption. Also, the suppliers for businesses also get money, which they in turn keep circulating by paying salaries, purchasing raw materials which they turn into supplies for other businesses, etc. When money circulates from entity to entity (and I'm simplifying things here quite a bit, but you get the idea) to entity, it has a multiplier effect - think of the money as energy in a system. The energy is passed around, and as it flows, it lets entities do things to enable them to make their own energy, which is passed on to other entities, and so forth. Money multiplies in our economy, in other words.
When you disrupt that flow by artificially diverting some of that energy from upper income people to lower incomes, you do two things. First, there is less investment in businesses. That means fewer jobs are created (one of the things that flowing "energy" helps to create). Fewer jobs means less energy in the labor sector, which means consumption in that group falls, which hurts businesses that sell to that group. As those businesses decline, they either reduce wages (aka the "cost" of labor) or reduce jobs - either way, that's not good. Although injecting wealth into the lower class does mean they will consume more goods and services, the multiplier effect is severly reduced as the upper class has less money to inject into the production side of the economy. That's bad.
I would write some more, but my eyes are tired and i want to think about something not involving politics for a few hours.
I didn't proofread this or even spellcheck it, so any goofs are my own.
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5 comments:
I'm all for a more equitable division of wealth. Not equal, mind you, but equitable and based on the value of one's work both within the market, and to society. Your upper-class New England neighbors putting $40k per month into their mortgage on a nice uptown Manhattan condo, for example. . . Are they working THAT MUCH harder than you are? Creating THAT MUCH more wealth? Are there THAT many more hours in a day? Look at the world in general, and think about who is busting their chops at the office, and wonder why they're not making enough money to buy even a decent place to live, while a small minority have, um, 30 different homes around the world. Wonder why bankers are buying multi-million dollar mansions with 32 rooms, and taking vacations at Pebble Beach with all their favorite co-workers, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on massages and Mai-Tais while their companies are floundering and all their employees will be without jobs next week. A little math or a check of your 401k and you'll see it's YOUR money they're taking. THIS is why people think they smell a rat. Yes, some people may want to nurture the rat, build him an alter, and rub his belly for good luck; others want to take him by the tail and toss him outside in the real world. I'm not a socialist; but I do take offense at the gross overpayment of corporate executives who are just taking advantage; and at worse, fleecing Americans out of their hard-earned and hard-invested dollars by misrepresenting the "work" they have done. What they have is not even "wealth"--it's greed and the spoils of white-collar robbery. What they have "created" is multi-billion-dollar fraud. I think it's what a lot of people are complaining about when they talk about re-distribution of wealth--a reward structure that is not obscene and has checks so we're not rewarding cheaters and liars. Why kiss the shackles and thank the ogre for a crust of bread, when you can demand your just desserts? I'll take someone who wants to work hard and benefit society over a greedy egotist with creative math skills any day. ;)
This looks like a big soapbox to me. Don't worry-your government will take care of you--just trust them.
@ Heather: Sorry, I got a little overexcited last night. My soapbox makes me do that! ;)
I guess to add a more balanced comment: many of these economic theories work in theory; but in practice, things run amok. "Trickle down" economics sounds nice in theory, but in practice, people at the top seem to get selfish and wasteful and throw the whole thing off. Let's say you run a grocery store; and you get so excited about your profits one year that you buy yourself a new house and car and head out on vacation to Aruba. While you are away, your freezer breaks and all the food goes bad. You get back, and either get a $40k loan and start from square one (assuming you've learned something); or you have to close your store. That's what's happening in America today. A few people at the top selfishly and short-sightedly bleeding profits away and wasting them. Now, economics doesn't care--it all works itself out, right? But we're humans. We need to eat regularly, so topsy-turvy shake-outs are not very appealing for us.
I'm not saying any other system is better than "trickle down"--I just don't think any of these are a magic bullet, which is probaby there are so many systems and hybrid systems.
Government take care of me? By the looks of my paycheck, I'm taking care of them. ;)
I'm noticing it can be hard not to get emotional about this kind of stuff! I think I'm going to take a vacation from it now. I apologize for my extra-long and rambley first post.
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