Days before the 2014 Winter Olympics one of the quotes coming out of Sochi was, “Don’t flush the toilet, don’t drink the water and don’t expect a good night’s sleep”. ( NYYorkDailyNews )  Even after spending 51 Billion dollars on the games, the plumbing did not work, roads were not paved and living quarters were sub par in that Black Sea resort town.  Anyone taking a trip to stay in Orlando, Atlanta, or Nashville would have a far better experience with accommodations and amenities.  The living situation in much of Russia is far worse than that.  The difference is simply that capitalism produces the highest standard of living for the most people.  People, given the freedom to seek the opportunities that are best for them, will consistently have a higher standard of living that those whose lives are orchestrated by government.  The more orchestrated and controlled an economy is, the poorer the citizens of that country are.

As the United States has moved to implement more regulations and more entitlements, the standard of living for the average American has dropped.  Average hourly wages have dropped.  There are a record number of Americans no longer in the labor force.  Those of us working are paying these able bodied people to stay home.  There are more people are on food stamps than ever before and the rate of poverty in the US has continued to rise.  It’s not rocket science.  The more we implement policies that encourage dependency on government the poorer we as a country get.  The burden on the working middle class continues to increase.  It is not the rich that are paying for all these benefits, it is the average working American.

In college I wrote a paper lauded by my instructor which glorified the benefits of communism.  It was all about how everyone should be given their fair share and how communism had been implemented poorly in China and Russia.  The reality is that communism can’t be implemented in any way that is successful.  People will always act in their own best interests.  Those that get all their stuff free will do the minimum to maintain the free stuff.  That is why the able bodied, not yet retired people in America that are being paid while not working will continue to not work as long as the government will pay them.   The simple fact that people are people is enough to prevent communism from ever working as it does in theory.

But what about the excesses of capitalism where the worker is exploited and the consumer is ripped off?   Indeed these abuses do happen but, in a truly free and prosperous society these abuses are quickly eliminated.  Prosperity allows people to move from job to job for better wages.  That gives employers a significant incentive to treat their employees well.  Consumer products that harm people are quickly taken off the market as the reputation of the company making those faulty products is quickly trashed.  Beyond that civil and criminal law has stiff penalties for knowingly harming consumers.

So why do our politicians consistently promote benefits knowing that it harms the long term prosperity of this country.  Why is it popular among politicians and the media to say they are taking from the wealthy to give to the poor.  For the democrats it is not hard to figure out.  The position buys votes and power.  Everyone knows the examples of the USSR, China, Cuba, and Vietnam and the misery communism has brought.   They are unwilling to let facts get in the way of power and control.  The media’s support of the false and detrimental narrative is more difficult to explain.  Clearly, ABC, CBS, and NBC have been willing to falsely edit the news in the past year to promote the idea that cops are out to get black people or to make the economy look better than it is.  A dropping unemployment rate is not the headline when its caused by the lowest labor participation rate in history.  It’s new designed to prop up those in power and designed to fool people into thinking they are doing better than they are.

Our current path will result in widespread poverty yet no one in the media or in office seems willing or able to stand up and tell the truth.  Such poverty was evident in China and the Soviet Union before they allowed capitalist reforms.  Rampant poverty is currently evident in Cuba and Venezuela both countries that are embracing extreme socialism or communism.     The fact is that if the state takes to much from its populace so that the state can redistribute that income or spend it the result is a populace that can’t hold on to the fruit of its own labor.  That population will eventually stop trying to produce and for a long as it lasts they will soak up the government benefits.  This is already happening with the largest ever non-working and not looking for a job group.  Those that work will stop supporting everyone else and at that point all collapses.

The businesses that  support the media and the government in this effort to redistribute income are creating their own demise.  Those that support fake economics promoted by the likes of CBS are adding to the problem.    Those that advertise with ABC, CBS, and NBS are funding their eventual failure.   They may get a short term gain from crony capitalism and government largess, but when their remaining employees can’t support themselves their will be no one to pay for the things they manufacture.