Shared Prosperity

Hillary Clinton hs been speaking of "shared propserity" -- not a bad code word for socialism (dare I say what it really is: communism?), wouldn't you say? Well, here's a few rough numbers, to put this into perspective.

Take the money from the Gates Foundation, approximately $100 billion dollars. Divide it by the U.S. population, about 300 million people. Each person would get a whopping . . . $333! I think Bill Gates can do far better things with his money at his foundation than just give it away "fairly".

Or how about if we really go big. If we take all the money from the top one tenth of one percent (0.01%), or the richest 300,000 people, we get $16,800 trillion (these are 2005 numbers) which, when divided by the U.S. population, gives each person $56,00. Not bad, don't you think? Sounds like a wonderful idea, I hear some of you saying. But suppose we did do just this one day -- seized all this money and distributed it evenly? Do you suppose that any of those 300,000 people would be interested in trying to make that kind of money again? Unlikely. And I would guess that most of us are employed by one of those 300,000 people, who would now not be so keen to keep doing what they are doing (that is, providing everyone jobs, places to shop, cheap goods, etc.). How quickly would this kind of idea drive the country into abject poverty?

Now, I know that this is not the kind of idea Hillary Clinton is really in favor of. What I have given you here is a radical kind of thought experiment. But it does make the point that, while it may make people better off in the short term, in the long term, redistributionist policies impoverish us all. Beware of anyone using this kind of rhetoric. "Shared prosperity" will do nothing more than lead to shared impoverishment. But don't worry, the Leftists will at least rule us absolutely by then. (One only hopes my rhetoric here is elevated and not prophetic)