Income Equality

The concept of "income equality" is counter to everything that capitalism promotes i.e. the "Yankee Ingenuity" that our country was founded upon and propelled us to greatness.  "Income equality" stifles creativity, innovation, hard work (and a good work ethic) and instead promotes mediocrity, laziness, and an attitude of entitlement. 

 

If you don't believe me, let us examine some history.  When I was growing up in the 1970s, I vividly remember the pictures of the long lines rampant throughout the communist Soviet Union, where everyone was supposedly guaranteed a job (or at least some basic income), that people had to stand in for basic everyday food and clothing products which were often in limited supply and rationed.  Forget about having any choice of different products or brands of items to purchase.  Affording a modern appliance was a luxury.  But even then, any appliance manufactured in the Soviet Union was of shoddy quality and unreliable.  Unless you were part of the elite ruling class, rampant shortages and standing in lines were a significant part of your everyday life.  Welcome to income equality!

 

So how did the ruling elite stay in power?  I would argue—vodka!  Vodka was always in plentiful supply and the only product that the Soviet Union never ran out of.  So with everyone regularly drinking vodka, the ruling elite had no trouble manipulating and exploiting the drunken and sedated masses.  There is evidence of that still continuing today with stories of Russian soldiers on the frontlines in Ukraine being nothing more than a bunch of drunks—all liquored up and sent to war.

 

So from where did the ruling elite get their "luxury" items?  Other than caviar, it was the capitalistic West, of course!  They certainly didn't value anything made in the Soviet Union by a drunken, unmotivated workforce.  But it was only a matter of time before this type of economy would collapse, which it eventually did in the late 1980s leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall and eventually the Soviet empire which Vladimir Putin is so desperately trying to recreate.

 

(So if you buy into my analysis of the fall of the Soviet Union, can you see any seeds of that being planted here in the United States?  I sure can—literally—with the growing number of marijuana/cannabis farms in America and the skyrocketing increase in marijuana/cannabis sales and use by the public.  Could it be the power brokers in our own county have now turned to legalizing cannabis to keep the public doped up and ignorant of the political malfeasance currently running rampant?  Whether these actions are actually motivated by a desired purposeful manipulation of the population or just plain old greed, the outcome is the same – a sedated, brain-damaged population which cannot sustain innovation and growth, much less exercise critical thinking in deciding who to vote for—"just keep the drugs coming, man!" 

I also explain more about the dangers of such dope legalization in my "Legalized Marijuana/Cannabis" section.)

 

Another more modern example of the pitfalls of "income equality" is the affect the Government handouts had during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic.  When people realized they could make more money collecting unemployment benefits than working, they understandably stayed home.  Even workers who made less money on unemployment did the math and realized it wasn't worth the few extra dollars per hour they would make if the returned to their old jobs.  So now we are left with staffing shortages all across America and a new class of workers who now feel entitled to either Government subsidies or artificially high wages – all of which are now fueling inflation which is making everyone poorer as inflation outpaces income growth for both the employed and retired.

 

So if I haven't convinced you yet that the push for "income equality" will do more harm than good, I would challenge America to try an experiment with a small mostly inconsequential portion of our economy.  Lets add up all of the money paid in salaries to, for example, professional baseball players and divide it evenly across all players.  Does anyone really expect that the quality of play and players will be maintained, much less increase?  Does anyone expect the income and profits generated by the sport to be maintained, much less increase?  I think it is obvious it would be a disaster for the sport, but again, if you don't believe me, let's try it!!  In fact, let's throw in free marijuana for all of the players while we're at it, just to make it even more interesting--the marijuana may even delay the realization by the star players that they just got a pay cut!  

 

However, even with all I have said, I do believe there is definitely room for discussion on how to deal with the super wealthy.  My current thinking is that anyone who takes risks, has certain unique talents, and the like, is certainly entitled to its rewards no matter how large they may be.  However, I also believe these individuals have an obligation to give back to the society that enabled them to amass their wealth.  One idea is to "incentivize" philanthropy through the threat of imposition of exorbitant estate or inheritance taxes.  But more discussion and ideas are certainly welcome and must be balanced so as not to incentivize such individuals to flee the country.  Remember, the top 1% of income earners paid over 42% of all income taxes in 2020.  (https://www.ntu.org/foundation/tax-page/who-pays-income-taxes)

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As an aside, there is only one area where I would support income equality efforts -- political contributions.  Since I argue that the only way income equality can be achieved is by making everyone poor, let's start with the politicians.  I think that political poverty would actually do our country good.  In other words, if we all were to stop making political contributions, then just maybe we could have some real debates about real solutions to real problems -- and may the best ideas win instead of the candidate with the most money!  We also wouldn't have to worry about trillion dollar budget-busting "emergency" spending bills or tax cuts that Presidents often want to pass as soon as they get into office which us cynics just see as payback to the special interests that got them elected.