Gary DeMar | March 21, 2018
(Godfather Politics) – We’re most certainly dealing with a hasty generalization when we say that this group or that group believes a certain way. The true case is that most likely a vocal group within a larger group believes a certain way and has or gets a public platform to address a subject.
The latest platform speaking by millennials is about economics.
CNN reported last week that 66 percent of millennials aged 21 to 32 have nothing saved for retirement. And while their writer chalks up this inequity to student loans, “stagnant wages” and “high unemployment,” there may yet be a deeper cause: many millennials honestly don’t see a future for our economic system. (Salon)
If there is a reason why our economic system fails, it’s due to utopian-drive millennials voting for socialist economic policies. What kills capitalism is the elimination of capitalism. In order to create wealth, there needs to be capital. The redistribution of wealth disincentivizes people from putting the time and effort into creating wealth.
When millennials support Bernie Sanders who wants to make college education “free,” they are the ones destroying capitalism. The high price of college is mainly due to government involvement in helping to finance a college education. If there was less money available for a college education (taken from some people to be given to other people), colleges would have to lower their costs.
If capitalism fails, then what are these millennials going to do when it comes time for them to retire? One could make the case that at their young age retirement is so far in the future that there’s no need to worry about it now.
Maybe they could move to Venezuela where capitalism is dead.
The years slip by very fast. Each year of not saving and reaping the benefits of what capitalism offers puts a person further behind the economic eight ball. Let’s say that parents invested $1,000 the year their child was born. At 6% interest for 65 years would produce $44,145. Of course, that’s not enough to retire on. “If parents or grandparents, say, kicked in $20 a month for 20 years the nest egg would swell to more than $240,000 at the child’s retirement.” (Time)
The goal would be to teach children the basics of economics early. If these early invested children started to add to their savings account each month as their own income grew, there would be ample money for retirement. It’s called deferred gratification. Putting off some present spending to reap the rewards of later benefits.
Saving early might also help to inoculate them against Socialism. What economic system do these millennials think is going to “take care of them” in their retirement years? If not capitalism, then what?
“Capitalism might still exist [in 2050], but I don’t expect people will be happy about it,” Jon Good, 34, a chocolatier and small business owner, said. “If [capitalism] is replaced [by then], my ideal economic model is one where all basic necessities are abundant and free, everyone works a few hours a week at the necessary chores of society like garbage collection and machine maintenance, then has the rest of their lives free to pursue whatever projects—be they art, leisure, or industry—that they desire.”
That utopian hope, that we could theoretically end up in a sort of fully-automated post-work social democracy à la “Star Trek,” was expressed by others too. (Salon)
“All basic necessities are abundant and free”? Nothing is free. It’s a basic rule economics. Someone is paying the bill. Governments don’t have money. People who are getting free stuff are benefitting from someone else’s labor. These millennials need a history lesson.
Attempts at a socialistic economic system in the name of economic utopia have been repeatedly tried and found wanting. The Pilgrims were initially organized as a Collectivist society as mandated by contract by their sponsoring investors. No matter how much a person worked, everybody would get the same amount. It didn’t take long for the less industrious to realize that their diminished labor would net them the same result of the most industrious. “All such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock.”
“In his History of Plymouth Plantation, the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years because they refused to work in the field. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with ‘corruption,’ and with ‘confusion and discontent.’ The crops were small because ‘much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable.” (Mises Institute)
Bradford wrote the following in his first-hand history of events:
The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years . . . that by taking away property, and bringing the community into a commonwealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God.
For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without [being paid] that was thought injustice.
This [free enterprise] had very good success, for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.
Collectivism makes everyone unproductive. If the collectivism at Plymouth had continued, they all would have starved to death. What happened at Plymouth was tried equally unsuccessfully at Jamestown, established in 1607. “In the winter of 1609–10, called ‘The Starving Time,’ the population fell from five-hundred to sixty. Then the Jamestown colony was converted to a free market, and the results were every bit as dramatic as those at Plymouth.” (Mises Institute)
If the views of these millennials catch on, we’ll all be dead.