Have You Noticed?

 Have you ever noticed the bigger our government becomes the richer our politicians are?  Those who would suggest the government needs to tax the rich more so they can fund their social promises never seem to lose out on the deal, and most often find their fortune in those promises.

That is why I remain skeptical regarding the promises of the great socialist leaders of the Democratic party.  It was only about seven years ago folks like Bernie Sanders were praising the wealth redistribution plans of Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela.  It’s a sadly funny thing that now he is dead, but his family and his power base live on the wealth.  It is only the people who suffer from the ruling class's greed.

Those who continue to push for socialism as an economic system to replace capitalism have all kinds of promises and illustrations of how that result just can’t happen here.  At the same time, and almost in the same breath, they claim Donald Trump is an autocratic Nazi who is single-handedly destroying democracy.  Of course, if we support their vision of a socialist America, none of them would be autocratic Nazis (National Socialist Party) who would make the mega corporations richer as they feather their personal nests to “improve the lives of the poor” by destroying the middle-class.

By the way, let's talk about poverty for a minute.  According to the World Bank, 10% of the world’s population live in extreme poverty.  That’s down by about 36% since 1990.  In the U.S., according to the same source, roughly 12% of the population live in poverty with an average income of $33.26 per day. 

Is the best way to improve the lives of the poor to give them free stuff, or to provide them a way to lift themselves out of poverty?  Unfortunately, everyone seems to have their own opinions on this, but history has shown there will always be those who choose (for a variety of reasons) not to succeed, and mathematically there will always be a bottom 10%.  Can a centralized politburo, as the socialists among us would create, come up with a five-year plan to eliminate those two realities?  I think not.

Finally, if Democratic socialism is so great how come so many Democratic-controlled cities are filled with filth, crime, drugs, and civil unrest?  To listen to the news those are all bi-products of American racism, but if so, how come places, where there are strong capitalist leaders don’t have those same issues?