Capitalist Frogs

Most of us know the story about how to boil a frog.  Toss a live frog in boiling water, and it will jump right back out.  Even a frog's not stupid.  Put a frog in a pot of warm water, and it's comfortable.  When you turn on the burner under the pot, it adjusts to the slowly heating water.  And stays perfectly comfortable as it is boiled to death.   

Woodrow Wilson threw our capitalist society into the boiling water.  Americans, being at least as smart as your average tail-less amphibean, jumped out of that pot.  When FDR cranked up the heat, only because of the emergency brought on by the depression and then World War II, Americans endured the heat because it seemed to be the right thing to do.  But as soon as the twin crises passed, the country jumped out and swore that we'd never get back in!

So, we sat in our pot of water, perfectly comfortable in our little free enterprise beliefs.  Soon, our elected officials suggested that we subsidize farmers.  You know, pay them to not grow crops while the land recovered.  Kind of goes against free enterprise principles, but the water's fine, so a little heat can't hurt.  Minorities and women have been held down by our system for years, so let's give them a little help getting started.  I know, a real free market would eventually reward them if their work was worthwhile.  But that would take too long.  They deserve a break.  The water's barely warm, turn the heat up just a little.  No problem.

Nuclear power's really clean and we will never run out of it.  But wow, it's really expensive and innefficient.  Let's give them a little government money to get started.  The market will eventually catch up to our wisdom and pay us all back.  Turn up that burner a little more.  Well, the earth's getting a little too warm cold warm, we need some friendly energy.  Let's give a little tax money to solar panel makers and windmill generators.  Just to get them
started.  Getting warm yet?

Those darn rich Americans aren't giving their money to ACORN like they should.  Give them some tax money.  And then finally, Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Bank of America, those guys are all too big to fail.  We'd better throw boatloads of tax money at them, or  free enterprise will fall apart.  Now, it's definitely getting hot!

The water finally got hot enough to wake up us free enterprise frogs.  We've got to stop the subsidies and let the market decide who succeeds and who fails, from the doughnut shop on the corner all the way to the state level.  If Krispy Kreme knocks Sunshine out of the market, so be it.  Don't toss loads of money to Sunshine to keep them afloat.  If California keeps going further and further into debt to pay retirement benefits for 50 year old retirees, don't give them federal money to keep putting solar panels on their schools.  If $1000 of each Government Motors vehicle sale goes to retired union members, don't buy that Impala, unless of course, their car is $1000 better than the competition's.  And our tax dollars better not go to bail them out! 

A recent poll showed that just over 25% of respondents don't know that subsidies, bailouts, and welfare checks come from the taxpayers!  They think the government just has extra money laying around.  The report did not say how many of these 25% were actually members of congress.  Ribbit.