A practical application of socialist ideas (Read 1171 times)

PaulyGram


Fast is better than long

    A friend posted this on facebook today, and I never thought the example could be this easy to understand.

     

    An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's 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 Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
    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. 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. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
    Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

    These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
    1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
    2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
    3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
    4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
    5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

     

    2017 Goals: Give up goals; they're stoopid

     

    Give a man a fire and he'll be warm the rest of the night;
    Set a man afire and he'll be warm the rest of his life.

    What in the Jehu?

      Kind of funny that people think any mainstream politician in the States could reasonably be described as "socialist", by European standards they're all way out on the political right :/

        I am sure the story is made up.  Which professor, which college? Did they all chant with one voice? Moreover,

         

        "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus

        AmoresPerros


        Options,Account, Forums

          That reminds me -- I have $100 billion tied up in Nigera, and I'd like to pay you some of it to help get it free. Could you just send me some cash now to get the process under way?

           

          K thks bye

          It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.


          bigkenny

            Thanks Pauly. Even if this is an urban legend / example of socialism, OMG - Obama Must GO!

            MrH


              You'd hope a professor of economics, even an imaginary straw man one, would understand the difference between communism and socialism. Smile

              The process is the goal.

              Men heap together the mistakes of their lives, and create a monster they call Destiny.

                I'm still trying to figure out how the modestly wealthy taxpayer, outraged that the fruits of his labor go to those unshowered ne'er-do-wells, can just "opt out" of paying taxes.

                "I want you to pray as if everything depends on it, but I want you to prepare yourself as if everything depends on you."

                -- Dick LeBeau


                Menace to Sobriety

                  I'm still trying to figure out how the modestly wealthy taxpayer, outraged that the fruits of his labor go to those unshowered ne'er-do-wells, can just "opt out" of paying taxes.

                   

                  That's explained in another chain letter.

                  Janie, today I quit my job. And then I told my boss to go f*** himself, and then I blackmailed him for almost sixty thousand dollars. Pass the asparagus.

                    FORWARD THIS TO FIVE OF YOUR FRIENDS IF REALLY  CARE ABOUT RESCUING OUR COUNTRY FROM BARAK HUSSEIN OBAMA!

                    "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus

                      I'm still trying to figure out how the modestly wealthy taxpayer, outraged that the fruits of his labor go to those unshowered ne'er-do-wells, can just "opt out" of paying taxes.

                       You're not trying hard enough....but being the good "republican fat cat" that I am, I'll do the extra work and explain it to you (though I too am currently unshowered).

                        This overly simplistic (not necessarily a bad thing) analogy, if i read it correctly, equates income with test points.  The taxes are the test points distributed to others with fewer test points.  The "modestly wealthy" test takers "opt[ed] out" of doing the work required to earn the test points since they were being redistributed.  If they still scored above the class average, they still paid their "fair share" of taxes.

                       Speaking of "fair share", imagine the one student who still studied hard and aced the test.  I hope he or she subscribes to Warren Buffet's line of thinking, or they'll be pretty ticked off  "giving" away almost all their test points.

                      (Yes, I use "too many" quotation marks to make up for my lack of clever witticisms.)

                        Are the test points in limited supply? Could the professor give everyone an A or an F, at his pleasure?  Do all the students have equal access to tutors or other supplemental materials?  Did each of the students have supportive, educated and education-oriented parents? Any of the students with poor grades have a parent who came home drunk every night or so and beat the crap out of her? 

                        "If you have the fire, run..." -John Climacus

                        AmoresPerros


                        Options,Account, Forums

                          It's a 5k. It hurt like hell...then I tried to pick it up. The end.

                            This reminds me of a really bad joke I heard on Saturday which required one to believe that President Obama is a Muslim in order to get the punchline--one of those encounters that makes you scratch your head and go, "Huh, there really are whole swaths of our society that are determined to be willfully ignorant," before that thought starts to cause you some anxiety so you banish it from your head and go back to being absorbed in the 49ers/Saints game and trying to keep the conversation on sports...

                            Runners run


                            Why is it sideways?

                              Yeah, but that's a socialist terrorist message in line with that terrorist Palestinian rabble rouser from two millenia ago.

                               

                              Ha ha.