The Income Inequality Bogeyman

Although modern social engineers have long bemoaned the evils of income inequality, it is not the source of those evils.With all due respect to the new Pope, income inequality is not a problem in and of itself. In fact, income inequality is absolutely essential to a healthy growing economy. If the economic structure does not reward productive behaviors with greater incomes, then there is no economic reason to engage in those more productive behaviors. Achieving complete income equality is a Marxian ideal and would completely wipe out incentives for the very productive behaviors that generate societal wealth. Maintaining income equality for a sufficient period of time would also eventually achieve another important Marxian ideal, which is equal distribution of wealth. This is Marxism. If we were to wipe out income inequality, it would inexorably lead to the redistribution of all wealth; but in the end, we would only manage to achieve equally distributed poverty. The greatest social experiment of twentieth Century, International Communism, has dramatically demonstrated the complete failure of the entire Marxian social ideal. It is utterly foolish to even start down that road again!

"Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief:"
The Fallacy of Taking From the Rich to Give to the Poor

When you rob from a rich man and give the booty to the poor you commit several crimes. First you rob the poor man of his incentive to improve himself. Then you rob the rich man of an opportunity to enrich his soul through voluntary charity, or better yet to offer profitable employment to the poor man. Consequently, you rob the poor man again of the opportunity for employment that a good investment by the rich man would have provided. But ultimately you do yourself the greater harm when you deceive yourself by justifying your crimes with some lofty ideal.

Jonathan Reed
December 4, 2013

         Here is a bit of light reading that proves I am not completely fixated on politics. It is a short fairy tale that I wrote for an assignment in my LIST course at UALR. It is loosely based on an experience I had as a child. On the day of my fateful experience I had been playing with some of my friends along the edge of the woods, and we had spent quite a bit of time chasing each other and trying to pop small puffball mushrooms in each others' faces. We had had a blast trying to make each others' faces turn green from the powder , but we all become very ill later that evening. I will never forget my mother holding me that night as I felt what seemed like icy cold fingers gripping the inside of my chest. I obviously recovered from that rather scary experience, but it provided the inspiration for this little tale. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Jonathan Reed

Dr. Franks

Liberal Arts Colloquium

February 18, 2013

Prince Andy’s Black Feather

A very long time ago, in a place so very far away, there lived a young prince named Andy.  Andy lived in an enchanted land where children could run and play just about anywhere they wanted to, and no one would do them any harm. This was because King Eric and his knights were so very fierce in protecting the kingdom that witches and ogres, giants and goblins all ran away whenever they even heard the sound of horse’s hooves. But in spite of his fierce reputation, King Eric loved Andy so much that he did everything he could to help the young boy grow up to be a good and kind prince. King Eric was stern, but he was also kind at heart, and since he wanted Andy to grow up to be strong and wise he made sure that the little prince had plenty of places to run and play with his friends after he had finished all of his lessons.

So it happened that one bright summer day Andy went out to play in the meadows beside the woods where all of the fairies live. Several of his friends met him underneath the spreading branches of an old oak tree. They all decided to run and play along the edge of the woods where the mushrooms and toadstools grow. That day when they met at their usual spot, an old black crow was making an awful racket as he scolded them from the branches of their favorite oak tree. They all looked at each other and laughed.  Then they went off to play without a care in the world, and none of them paid any further attention to the heckling calls of that old black crow.

Now there was an old warlock who hated King Eric because the good king had made it so very hard for the warlock and all of his evil friends to snatch the children they liked to use to make their potions and puddings, sausages and spells. He had sent a letter to King Eric and told him to leave the witches and ogres, giants and goblins alone. Here is what that old warlock wrote:

King Eric,

You should be happy to suffer the loss of a few poor, insignificant children from the edges of your realm now and then in order to ensure that prince Andy grows up in safety. If you are a clever king, you will understand that you should just tell your knights to leave all of the witches and ogres, giants and goblins alone. If you do not learn to see things my way, then who knows what will become of that precocious young heir to your crown.

Vahndahl the Varlock

Now Eric was a very good king so he quickly responded by sending out even more knights to guard and protect every child in his kingdom from the warlock and all of his evil friends. This made the old warlock very angry so he disguised himself as a crow in order to get close enough to hurt Prince Andy.  The crafty old warlock knew that a crow was much too small to carry away a child, but he wanted to make King Eric wish he had never crossed Vahndahl the Varlock, so he cooked up his most powerful spell. He created a poison powder he could carry under his wings. He had sprinkled this vile green poison in those puffy little mushrooms the children liked to squish when they played in the grass at the edge of the woods where all of the fairies live. So while Andy and his friends were playing that morning and stomped on those puffy mushrooms and tossed them around in the air, the old warlock chuckled to himself because he knew that Andy and his friends would soon be dead.

But Andy’s mother had a secret she had never told anyone. She was the Queen of the Fairies that lived out there in the woods. She knew all about the evil magic that the old warlock used. When Prince Andy became very sick, he knew that something was terribly wrong. This was no ordinary case of the sniffles; Andy had never been so sick before. He knew he had made some grave mistake but he could not figure out what it was. There was just one thing to do; he had to find the smartest person he knew. He went to his mother and told her everything that had happened that day. The Queen of the fairies knew exactly what the old warlock had done. She called for her huntsman, gave him some arrows, and sent him right out in the woods. She then called a meeting of all of the fairies and told seven of them to make the huntsman’s feet completely silent. She told twelve fairies to sprinkle him with invisible powder so the warlock could not see him come. Then she sent seventy fairies to take special cures to all of the children who had been poisoned by the evil warlock that day.

When everyone had gone, Andy called out to his mother as he felt the cold fingers of death encircle his beating heart. She took him in her arms and softly whispered some very old but powerful words as she gently kissed the forehead of her dying son. Instantly his fever broke and he fell safely asleep in her arms. The magical cure she had used would make Andy sleep quietly for a whole day before he could get up and play. She quickly called to her maidens who helped her place Andy on a beautiful funeral bier. She had them all prepare the procession for the next morning and then she waited for the breaking of dawn.

As the first rays of sunshine peeled back the layer of fog that had spread itself across the meadow where the royal funeral pyres were always laid, the silent procession proceeded from the castle with the queen and her ladies all shrouded in black. Overhead the wings of an old black crow flapped silently as the old warlock settled down among branches of the old oak tree. He sat and chuckled to himself as he watched the servants pile up the wood for a royal funeral pyre. But as he watched he could not help but notice that the pile of wood seemed far too small to lift Andy’s soul to the sky.  It was then that he noticed that the pyre was not in the usual place. In fact it was next to the dunghill. For a moment he knew that his plan had gone wrong. It was only a small moment, but it was enough; as the huntsman’s arrow pierced his breast, the warlock knew that his disguise could never have been enough to fool the Queen of the Fairies. As the fire of the poison she had placed on tip of her huntsman’s arrow burned deep in his chest, the smile on the queen’s face told the warlock that the pyre they laid was for him. As his black feathers flew all around him, the queen and her ladies threw their black shawls to the ground. This would be a day of dance and celebration, not the funeral the warlock had planned. As the celebration began, his last breath escaped him and he plummeted to the ground. The last thing he saw was the peaceful smile on Andy’s young face and the steady rise and fall of his chest. That day was a great celebration that went on until the fading of the light, until every last ember from that funeral pyre had vanished into the blackness of the night. Through all this noise and commotion Andy just slept, and continued his peaceful dreams until dawn.

Andy never knew what happened that day, but when he grew up he would often lie down in the shade of that old oak tree where he would twirl the big black feather he had found on the ground below where the old crow had perched. He would look at it and wonder whatever had happened to that heckling old crow in the tree. A lot of things had changed, but King Eric and his knights still patrolled the whole of his kingdom, and children still played without a care in the world. King Eric never knew that his wife was actually the Queen of the Fairies, but that didn't matter because they were both happy and they were very proud of the son they had raised. Their kingdom remained a wonderful place that was filled with love, life, and laughter for many generations to come.

As we finish our tale of things that have passed

We should always remember the things that come last.

So with no further fanfare we should all take note

How the Queen of the Fairies taught Andy two things

That every young prince should know.

There is no warlock who can cast a spell as strong as a mother’s love

And there is no evil poison that cannot be overcome

By the magic and comfort of her warm gentle kiss

I have decided to share a little WIKI post I just did for my Political Science class. I hope you can forgive my somewhat impish use of irony. 

Obamacare and an unwelcome lovechild

Of all the interest groups involved with the Obamacare disaster, none deserves more scrutiny that the health insurance industry itself. I find it particularly ironic that Obama’s illicit relationship whith this group has yielded a lovechild that I must (in spite of my staunch pro-life stance) say should probably have been aborted. It is a hidden, but key provision of the law that provides the insurance companies with a guaranteed bailout (of unspecified or blank check proportions) if the cost they incur in providing the policies the law requires eats into their profit margins too much. I don’t think Obama’s left wing allies will be too happy when they meet the progeny of their heroic leader and the health insurance lobby. I have included a link to a Yahoo.com article by Eric Pianin that provides a brief introduction to this little problem that thousands of pages of legislation could not hide for long. Please read it and try to find a reason why Obama would risk the wrath of the left to get cozy with the Health Insurance lobby.

Pianin, Eric. “Insurers Could Get Multi-Millions in Obamacare Bailout” The Fiscal Times

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/insurers-could-multi-millions-obamacare-111500000.html

p.s. Pianin is probably slightly underestimating the cost of this little mistake.

Today I watched the Democrats finally wake up and realize that they have been following their brave leader on a suicide mission. Unfortunately, they woke up late. They would have been  much better off if they had only took hold of the lifeline that the Republicans threw them during the government shutdown. Now they can only blame themselves for missing the opportunity to put this mess of until after the 2014 elections. While I am tempted to enjoy watching them scamper about in horror and lash out at their fearless leader, I am even more horrified than they are at the mess they have made in our healthcare system. This would never have happened if Obama had told the American People, and Congress, the whole truth about the "Affordable Care Act" back when he was trying to get it passed. This is what you get when you blindly follow a group of leaders who are convinced that they know what is best for everybody else. If by some miracle, the Obama administration can turn this one around, I'll certainly be willing to eat crow. But I honestly believe that there is no way out of the trap that Obama has led his party into. This is one for the History books.

Dear Mr. Obama: Promises or Gilded Chains?

Mr. Obama,

I have spent most of my life living well below the poverty level, and I have always been frustrated with the level of government dependency that poverty often entails. You offered a promise to Americans that was clearly intended to make them believe they would be able to keep their personal independence under your new health care law. You promised that they could keep their health care plans and their doctors "Period." But you lied, and now you offer us a hollow apology for that lie and you promise to vastly expand government dependency to a much larger segment of the middle class--in the form of subsidies. It has been one of my long cherished goals to free myself from dependency on the liberal "safety net" and now you expect me to thank you for moving that goal further beyond my reach! I am tired of being trapped in your liberal ideal. The soft slavery of government dependency is not liberty! I would be more than happy to assume the risks of liberty, but your obvious determination to expand government dependency until it secures your political allies a permanent hold on our nation is more than I can stand. This poor American is ready for liberty and personal independence! Mr. Obama, stop strangling opportunity with the chords of federal regulation. Stop placing the chains of dependency on more and more Americans. I have one message for you and your Progressive friends. "Let my people go!"

Jonathan Andrew Reed Sr.