ECONOMICS 101 -- BASIC ECONOMIC SYSTEMS

As a handy-dandy little guide to economics, I'n presenting this simplified description of the basic socio-economic systems that exist in today's world. Hopefully, after studying this material, readers will better understand what we're up against and what we must avoid.

CAPITALISM: You own 20 cows. You milk your cows every day and process the best-quality milk that you can, always striving to be the best at what you do. Your dairy business begins to thrive and over the next few years, you are able to buy up all your competition's cattle. You now own 500 cows and have a milk monopoly. You become wealthy and then you sell your dairy business for millions of dollars more and retire while you're in your 40's.

SOCIALISM: You own 20 cows. The government taxes your profits and redistributes the money to unproductive people. You can't buy any more cattle and expand your business. Jobs are lost.You're forced to sell off some of your cows in order to stay afloat. This continues until you can no longer compete in the marketplace, then the government seeks to move in and take over your dairy when you're almost bankrupt. Bureaucracy then takes over the operation of your dairy (see below).

BUREAUCRACY: The government takes over your dairy business. It spills half of the mik, then lets the other half spoil. Nobody has any milk.

COMMUNISM: You own 20 cows. The government confiscates all of them. You own nothing. Everything becomes government property, assigned to people according to their importance to the state. You are forced to work, under threat of imprisonment, and are paid not in money, but with "credits" you can redeem for necessities in a government-run store. The amount of credits you get again depends on your value to the state. If you complain or protest, you are "re-educated," or imprisoned. Hard-line dissidents tend to disappear forever. You are essentially a slave, owned by the state.

NAZI/FASCISM: You own 20 cows. The government's Secret Police shows up in the middle of the night, steals all your cattle, executes you, then throws your family in a concentration camp. Everyone the government considers undesirable is imprisoned and forced to do hard labor. They are true slave, paid nothing; given only enough food and water to keep them barely alive. Only a favored few are allowed to profit, under strict government control. Basically Communism on steroids.

Now, which system would YOU rather live under?? Our capitalist/free market system, or one of the others?

Please VOTE on Nov. 4th. IT MATTERS MORE THAN EVER IN THIS ELECTION!!!