Friday, April 3, 2009

I found this comment . . .

on a Blog "Obama is Killing America". I think it's pretty insightful. Sometimes it helps to listen to someone who speaks from experience. VN8

Angelika Ilina said...
I was born in Siberia in the former USSR. When I was 13 years old, my family moved to the U.S. That was in 1989. So I know what it's like to live in a socialist country.

Socialized medicine created a perfect black market: anyone who could afford to pay "under the table" did, just to get better care and faster service.

The government, forever inefficient, absolutely ignored basic supply and demand principles: people needed shoes, toothpaste, and underwear, which you couldn't find, but there was plenty of canned fish no one wanted to buy. So, the black market flourished here, too, with people being desperate for choices in goods.

We had a joke: "people are pretending to work and the government is pretending to pay". People had no incentives to perform well. The government kept printing money to pay for all of these under-performing workers. Until the whole thing collapsed. Then hyperinflation took over. People brought their paper money to banks in bags and threw it on the floor because it was worthless.

So, when I see what is happening to this country, I tell my friends that it scares the heck out of me to see the U.S. continuously moving in a socialist direction. And they laugh me off.

I don't understand how so many people can't think logically. This is simple stuff - you don't reward people and companies when they overspend and under-perform. You don't punish people and companies that don't overspend and under-perform by taxing them and taking away opportunities from them to gain market share from badly performing competitors who otherwise would be going out of business.

You don't take away incentives for companies to innovate, compete on price and service, and create more jobs.

Somehow when it comes to politics and economics, people tend to get so emotional and entirely illogical. Hence the ObamaMania.

And not many are screaming at the top of their lungs in opposition to the bailout, more government control, socialized medicine plans, more taxes, etc.

The Soviet Union was a perfect, real life example of where socialism can lead. I hope this never happens here. But people better wake up to what's going on and do something about it. The great thing about this country is that you can still speak up without being thrown into jail (or shipped off to Siberia).

February 19, 2009 8:56 PM

8 comments:

Unknown said...

VN8, what's your problem with socialized medicine? We can regulate it, can't we, and have high quality care without those nasty old profits? And what's this you say about a black market? Don't worry - government regulation is all we need to take care of that! Gosh, it's worked so well in Canada and Europe. That's why Americans go to Canada and Europe for surgery. Oh, that's not it...they come here. But never mind, our government will do it better because BO is in charge! Hope 'n change to ya!

VoteNovember2008 said...

Lee, I thought it was a gold mine when I found this comment, but you know telling the truth from someone who knows what it would "really" be like isn't going to change any minds but it reaffirmed for me exactly how I feel about the situation! I love sarcasm! VN8

Jim said...

We are living through an economic nightmare right now brought about by unfettered, unregulated capitalism. We must have and we will have regulatory reforms and checks and balances to prevent the billionaires from destroying the middle class, our government and our very way of life. We all believe in democracy and capitalism but anyone who wants unfettered, unregulated capitalism is either a billionaire wanting to game the system or a fool. I don't think that describes any of us so how about we figure out a reasonable balance that works for America and stop all this incendiary rhetoric.

VoteNovember2008 said...

Sign me up. I'm a FOOL for capitalism. VN8

Anonymous said...

Sure! The more fettered and regulated the capitalist oinkers are, the better. Fettering and regulating will certainly bring out the innovators among us because they know that the government will pay them whether they innovate or not. And when we all run out of money for nothing, no sweat ... the gummit will just print more! That is change I can believe in!

Unknown said...

Jim, you live in a different world. We have more regulations per square inch than any place on earth. And a "nightmare?" What you call unfettered capitalism has brought you a standard of living most of the world can't understand. And even with our current problems, we're doing very well. And no one is trying destroy the middle class.

Anonymous said...

I have a good Russian friend of mine from the Army days. He pretty much says the same thing,that American is turning into the country he left. And if any should know it is my friend,who was a Major in the KGB before joining the US Army as a private to become a citizen.

Unknown said...

Mark Levin refuses to use the term "liberal" to describe Democrats as he believes it's a hijacking of the language. And he's right in that until the past few decades the word did not apply to those of the left. Instead, Levin calls them "statists" because they believe in the power of the state to bring about harmony and justice - utopian ideals. They believe that with the right government regulation, we can rid ourselves of risk and even out the business cycle (recall when WJC bragged that he had accomplished that in the mid-90s?). When those driven by criminal intent, such as Madoff, come along, the statist believes that only with some regulation, such shenanigans can be prevented. The statist does not understand or appreciate risk and its relationship to innovation but rather sees risk as something to be eliminated.