It’s Not that Complicated People

If you put weight on the end of a see-saw, the other end will go up.

If you let go of a rock atop a cliff, it will fall.

And if you light a match and put it to gasoline, it will ignite.

These common sense things are common sense because they are dictated by physics. Laws that we and everything in the universe must abide by.

And while the study of economics can claim no such simplicity, every once in a while a theory is so proven and so commonsensical that it is for all practical purposes a law and can be treated as such.

What is funny though, is how humans, particularly those of lefter leaning ideologies, refuse to believe these laws and try to some how circumvent them. As if through creative fiscal policy and government programs they can create the scenario of having their economic cake and eating it too. It is quite literally no different than jumping off a cliff and thinking gravity will not apply to you.

But the particular law of economics I have in mind today is one my father would say;

“You don’t work, you don’t eat.”

Or in other words;

“If people don’t work, then there is no production and therefore no wealth.”

You’d think we’d have learned this very important lesson by watching the Soviet Union, Chairman Mao and varied other sorts of communists kill 100 million people and impoverish a billion more. But, ahhh, you so underestimate the ignorance and outright stupidity of the left. For one just has to look at the backlash Gerhard Schroeder suffered from his Hartx IV reforms and to a larger extent the slothful work ethic of Europe in general.

Recently unemployment in Germany reached a post WWII high at 12.6%. Certainly the worst of the European Brady Bunch, but not by much. France and Italy among others are pushing for double digit unemployment as well.

And while the above chart, with its many lines, may be a bit confusing, perhaps this chart from The Economist will make my point a bit clearer.

Again, remember folks, according to the left, our economy was “the worst economy in 50 years” when unemployment was at 6.3%. Yet at the same time they so desperately wish to emulate our European counterparts. Hypocrisy abound.

But what of the second part of the law; there is no wealth. Certainly unemployment itself is bad, but the European model cushions such unemployment and maintains similar standards of living, do they not? Well that could be said for the 16 million Swedes and Norwegians, as for the remaining 500 million Europeans, sadly this is not true. On the average, Europeans have suffered lower standards of living than Americans ever since GDP per capita has been recorded for all said countries. Furthermore, despite having access to the same technology and the $350 billion (translate that into roughly $2 trillion in today’s money) from the Marshall Plan, Europeans, unlike their Japanese counterparts, have failed to catch up. Worse still is the fact that while standards of living have improved, the gap between America and Europe has widened from roughly $5,000 to $8,000.

But then again, don’t listen to me. I’m just some dumb economist who when he’s not staving off the romantic advances of scores of women, he’s just jumping out of trees, running into the bushes and climbing rocks. But you’re going to have a hard time to convince me otherwise that if you pay people not to work (GASP!)

THEY WON’T!