Sixty years ago we bought our first house. It was $11,000.00. About ten years later we sold it for $30,000.00. Basically housing prices rose steadily for sixty years. Along the way home ownership became a cult idea. It started with Roosevelt and ended in a crescendo of speculation and absurd overpricing. No one really knew why a house was worth so much and why everybody should have one. There were lots of theories. Are we now faced with a cyclical downturn in housing demand? Or have we reached a tipping point where more and more people say “Hey I don’t need a 3,000 square foot house… I just need a 1,200 or 1,600 square foot home.” That would be a break in the mania, not just a typical cyclical decline. I don’t think too many people would argue with the idea that everyone should have all the “good things in life”, the only real difference of opinion would be how to accomplish that goal.
Abraham Lincoln once had a debate with Stephen A. Douglas. They were both running for Senator of Illinois. Douglas said the slaves of the south were better off than the northern immigrants. His rationale was that slaves were property and generally treated better than the northern laborers. This appeared to be true at the time. Lincoln’s response was that the difference between the northern laborers and the slaves was that northern laborers would eventually be upwardly mobile, one after the other. One would a start business, many would begin to hire their own employees and another would rise up in someone else’s business. Whereas he said that slaves, on the other hand, couldn’t go anywhere. They had their chains.
Unfortunately there are many kinds of chains. One can be chasing an impossible dream that housing prices will rise forever, or that internet prices will rise forever, or that people will stay pessimistic forever or that the government will provide for you forever. We are reaching the point where millions and millions of people are working for the government. We are increasingly restrained by an enlarging government which is viewed as beneficial but instead, in many ways, is becoming a new form of imposed chains.
Almost every significant unionized industry in America has failed. Now the largest unionized segment in America is government. I’m not against unions, anymore than I am pro-incompetent management. But they have both often caused more harm than good and been well compensated along the way.
People don’t leave what they believe to be secure environments. With unionized government jobs you’re unlikely to leave. You give up on opportunity. You generally vote for those in control that convince you that this is a good deal. You are mentally captured by what they seem to be providing and give up almost any chance for significant opportunity. Are we now on the road to the subtle enslavement state? You may be free to go, but how can you. Lincoln was right when he implied that “chains” come in many different varieties.
Government can only be paid for by taxes. If wages and salaries aren’t rising, and stocks aren’t rising, and houses aren’t rising, there isn’t going to be much to pay for future government. Freedom to succeed will ultimately create a more economically equal society. Reducing that freedom, whether well meaning or not, will ultimately prolong the problem. Certainly taxation without representation, where a small percentage of the people pay almost all of the taxes, will not work. The ultra wealthy who attempt to shield their real tax reducing methods, while shouting for equality, don’t help solve our problems.
Abraham Lincoln once had a debate with Stephen A. Douglas. They were both running for Senator of Illinois. Douglas said the slaves of the south were better off than the northern immigrants. His rationale was that slaves were property and generally treated better than the northern laborers. This appeared to be true at the time. Lincoln’s response was that the difference between the northern laborers and the slaves was that northern laborers would eventually be upwardly mobile, one after the other. One would a start business, many would begin to hire their own employees and another would rise up in someone else’s business. Whereas he said that slaves, on the other hand, couldn’t go anywhere. They had their chains.
Unfortunately there are many kinds of chains. One can be chasing an impossible dream that housing prices will rise forever, or that internet prices will rise forever, or that people will stay pessimistic forever or that the government will provide for you forever. We are reaching the point where millions and millions of people are working for the government. We are increasingly restrained by an enlarging government which is viewed as beneficial but instead, in many ways, is becoming a new form of imposed chains.
Almost every significant unionized industry in America has failed. Now the largest unionized segment in America is government. I’m not against unions, anymore than I am pro-incompetent management. But they have both often caused more harm than good and been well compensated along the way.
People don’t leave what they believe to be secure environments. With unionized government jobs you’re unlikely to leave. You give up on opportunity. You generally vote for those in control that convince you that this is a good deal. You are mentally captured by what they seem to be providing and give up almost any chance for significant opportunity. Are we now on the road to the subtle enslavement state? You may be free to go, but how can you. Lincoln was right when he implied that “chains” come in many different varieties.
Government can only be paid for by taxes. If wages and salaries aren’t rising, and stocks aren’t rising, and houses aren’t rising, there isn’t going to be much to pay for future government. Freedom to succeed will ultimately create a more economically equal society. Reducing that freedom, whether well meaning or not, will ultimately prolong the problem. Certainly taxation without representation, where a small percentage of the people pay almost all of the taxes, will not work. The ultra wealthy who attempt to shield their real tax reducing methods, while shouting for equality, don’t help solve our problems.
