Lessons learned

The following was forwarded to me by a friend.  I must say that it hit a chord with me.


An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan".. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A.... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D! No one was happy.
When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Could not be any simpler than that.  These are possibly the 5 best sentences you'll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:

1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.

2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.

3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.

4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!

5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.

This story illustrated something I learned more  than twenty years ago as a union member.  My co-workers and I were  paid the same wage regardless of  how little or how much any one of us worked.  As long as a worker showed up to work, whether you actually worked or not, you got paid.  In the shop where I worked three of us carried the other five.  In fact when the shift leader was off we almost doubled the production because he wan't holding us back to insure that he kept the full crew of eight when we repeatedly proved that three of us could have completed the same production.

For me personally unions did not work.  To close to Socialism.  Unions have a purpose and place I just personally feel that they have outlived their usefulness.  But then I am an individual who is motivated by the fact that if I work hard I am rewarded for my hard work.  If I don't work hard I have to face the reality that I will earn less.