The caricature above shows how communal unity, what in the Philippines has been known as the Bayanihan Spirit, transforms into a culture of entitlement.
I’d like to add an important missing element in the sketch: the use of the threat of violence (the gun via taxation) in forcing people to pull the cart.
Thanks to Cato’s Dan Mitchell
From Karen De Coster:
Raising prices is “gouging.”
Lowering prices is “predation.”
Keeping them the same is “collusion.”
Cutting costs is “scheming.”
So for governments, market prices signify a ‘damned-if-you and damned-if-you-don’t’ thing.
Yet without the pricing system there won’t be economic calculation which functions to coordinate or discoordinate the distribution of resources.
As Ludwig von Mises aptly pointed out.
A government that sets out to abolish market prices is inevitably driven toward the abolition of private property; it has to recognize that there is no middle way between the system of private property in the means of production combined with free contract, and the system of common ownership of the means of production, or socialism. It is gradually forced toward compulsory production, universal obligation to labor, rationing of consumption, and, finally, official regulation of the whole of production and consumption.
The Bolsheviks have tried this and failed, from the PBS.org (bold emphasis added)
1917-1920: With the October 1917 revolution, the Marxist concept of the moneyless economy becomes a desired goal, but not yet a practical one. The Bolsheviks nationalize the banks, but make no attempt to restrict inflation. With the destruction of the market economy, inflation soars, and money becomes virtually valueless. A black market based on barter develops to fill the vacuum.
Here’s a nice parody of the political rhetoric of free lunches. [Hat tip Cato’s Dan Mitchell.]
This applies even to Philippine politics.
Just replace President Obama with local politicians who dangle free stuffs for votes and we get the same message.
Here is a nice parody of how economic 'math or econometric' models are contrived and sold to the public as “workable”.
From xkcd.com, [click on this link to go to original site for clearer illustration]
(hat tip: Russ Roberts)
The following enlightening caricature from Heritage Foundation underscores how taxes impact the cost of education.
I just hope that there would be a Philippine version for this.
Good humorous stuff from about.com
``The office’s estimates of deficits in the fiscal years 2010 through 2019 “exceed those anticipated by the administration by $2.3 trillion,” the budget office said in a report.
``The deficits under the Obama plan would be $4.9 trillion more than the deficits that would be projected if there were no changes in current laws and policies — what the nonpartisan budget office calls its baseline assumption."
The Moral: More Bailouts=more wasteful spending (e.g. AIG), more corruption, more mistakes, more dissatisfaction and growing risks of political upheaval.
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