Sunday, September 13, 2020

Socialism, the New Bogeyman

 The US is full of former Socialists.  Actually, they're Socialists, but not rabidly socialist; the main reason they have (or had) given up on socialism, is because there was such a deep-seated opinion on the part of certain people, that the poor, which meant minorities, and the handicapped, and single mothers, and Native Americans, and addicts—in short, all the people that everyone has had a great time despising and vilifying—do not deserve to be bailed out of their marginal existence.

If you ever asked these people (if you could find out who they are,) why they do not want the most poor and indigent among us to be supported by the government, they would not have been able to give you a good answer.  Some of them—the more reasonable ones—probably think that it would be a load on the government, and would put the country even more in the red (raise the deficit is the common way of describing it) than it already is.  More vindictive ones would say: well, we had to work hard for our own savings; why should these people get handouts, just for staying at home?  The poor, of course, have been accustomed to being downtrodden, and take this abuse without much complaint.

That was the case, until COVID struck.  Now, millions are out of work, struggling to pay their rents, which means their landlords (some of whom lived like kings) are unable to pay their bills, and so on, so unexpectedly, a lot of people are thrown into poverty who were never this poor before.  These people are not accustomed to taking the sort of abuse that people have been accustomed to throwing at them, so that there is now (as never before) a political base for anyone who wants to change the conditions of the very poor.

Talking about "socialists", the people who have been socialists for a long time are used to waiting.  We tell ourselves: we are in no hurry.  Once the One Percent goes too far, the vast majority of the population will put its collective foot down, and the country will head towards a sort of Socialism where the government will control everything, and will probably not do it well.  

Young people who have only recently seen the point of socialism tend to want all of the aspects of socialism right away.  In practice, it makes a lot more sense to do a little at a time, until the public becomes comfortable with the idea, before they proceed further.

America has done fairly well with almost complete private ownership of all resources, (and of course, now businesses are screaming to control public lands and forests) but unfortunately these businesses, over the years, have come up with all sorts of tricks in order not to give value for money for the things they sell to ordinary people.  They buy up the competition (e.g. the phone companies), they do price-fixing; they do bait-and-switch; they fight against minimum wage, and so on.  If the government begins to own some companies, the private businesses cannot indulge in price fixing anymore.  (Small businesses see themselves on the side of Big Business, which is slightly funny, but they have a point.  If there is, for example, a government beer distributor in a town, the private beer distributors can't raise their prices higher than the government distributor.  But you can easily see how a private distributor can offer things the Government distributor would not bother offering, so... you see how that goes.

It makes perfect sense to speculate how this thing will go down, to prevent the GOP and the rabid Alt-Right crowd trying to scare everyone.  The most urgent, and easily enacted legislation will probably be undertaken first, followed by the more disruptive pieces, for which it is more difficult to get consensus.

One of the most annoying and frightening things we see in a Pandemic, or whenever there is a crazy wave of illness sweeping through the continent, is loss of health care.  When you lose your job, you lose your health care.  Many Democrats want to fix this problem once and for all.  (Taking this particular benefit out of the control of employers makes an enormous improvement in the dynamics between workers and employers.)  What if the Federal Government pays all the medical workers some reasonable rate, and requires that all hospitals take anyone who is sick for free?  That would be the best case scenario, but most Americans will hate that.  American citizens do not feel comfortable getting something for nothing.  (Will these workers be paid as well as they're paid now?  Will they all be paid the same, or will workers in New York be paid better than those in Podunk, Pi? Etc, etc.)  Or the government could take over the Insurance Companies, Blue Cross, Aetna, Prudential, etc., workers, managers and all.  Eventually, like all mergers, they will lay off unnecessary workers, which of course these workers will hate.

Another annoying thing is the fluctuating price of gasoline.  The government could take over the gasoline companies, and smooth out the distribution of gasoline.  Everybody expects that, if that is done, that the price of gasoline will go up.  I'm not sure why that is seen as inevitable.

One of the biggest actions that could be taken, as Andrew Yang has been advocating, is to give every person a small stipend, something as small as $500 a week.  In New York City, that will not go as far as it would in Podunk, Pi, but somehow, a way to make it work has to be found.  If this plan, called a Universal Basic Income is put into practice, it will be clear that people who want to continue to live in NYC will only do so if there is something that makes it convenient to live there.  So there will be a gentle pressure for people to move out of NYC, unless there is some advantage in living there, such as being close to some workplace.  Or being close enough to Trump Tower that you could go stand in front of it, and absorb its awesomeness.

Many big cities—and some quite small cities—allow anyone to ride a bus, for almost no money, and sometimes for free.  The more people ride the bus, the fewer of them will be driving to work.  A car carrying a single person to work is an enormous load on the environment.  Outlawing single occupant cars, alone, will improve Global Warming by an incredibly large amount.  Of course, we Americans value our polluting cars highly; almost more than anything else.

Finally, there is an initiative to either forgive outright, or heavily subsidize, college loans.  I am not certain that is fair; some young people take on part-time jobs while in college, which helps pay their fees, and for the rest, take out only very small loans.  Others do not work at all, and take out enormous loans.  If all these loans are paid off, it would appear that those who took out large loans get a larger advantage than those who have already worked their way through college.  However, if the government takes over those loans, they could reduce the rate of interest considerably, which would help all college graduates struggling to pay off their loans.  Banks have passed on revenue from college loans to their stockholders for far too long.

So, as you can see, it is possible for Joe Biden to do as little as he thinks the public can stand to do, and as little as Congress can stand to put into law.  I have never paid more than 25% income tax, and I doubt that any new tax law that Biden and the new Congress will put together will raise my taxes higher.  Many of my readers, those of you who are in the 35% tax bracket and higher, may see their taxes to up, but I'm sure they will pay the extra assessment with rejoicing and song, because who does not want the poor and the indigent to get a break, after all these horrible months?

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