"When 40% of the people pay 92% of the taxes, you have a problem with work ethic. Too much scamming goes on in welfare"
Posted on 07/18/2017 7:47:56 AM PDT by DeweyCA
As a society, we have done millennials a disservice. An entire generation of young people in America came of age during a decade of sluggish economic growth, and as a result, many are skeptical of free enterprise and capitalism. A stunning 2016 Harvard University survey of young adults between the ages of 18 and 29 found that 51 percent of respondents do not support capitalism. Millennial support for avowed socialist Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary was proof that young people today aren’t enamored with capitalism.
During the Obama years, the 18-29 age group heard countless presidential speeches railing against the evils of “crony” capitalism. President Obama told impressionable young voters if only the rich paid more taxes, everyone would be better off. But Obama’s tax and spend policies produced a predictably stagnant economy that stifled economic opportunity for young people.
The Obama agenda also attacked the notion of personal responsibility, killed on the altar of universal “rights” and the politics of victimhood. The Left preached that everyone has a “right” to free child care, free health care, a free college education and a roof over their head. And that the State will provide no matter what, so there’s no need to save, no need to work hard or pay your mortgage or student loans.
This is also the first generation raised by “helicopter parents,” who did their part, however well- intentioned, to undermine personal responsibility. Too many of today’s parents do everything for their children and shield them from learning life’s hard lessons.
Then they went off to a higher educational system that produces an oversupply of the white-collar soft-science and humanities majors, many of whom have no marketable skills. Not able to put their expensive educations to use, they became unemployed or underemployed. Being highly educated and yet working at Starbucks, waiting tables or living in your mom’s basement can indeed make you cynical about the benefits of hard work and free enterprise.
That cynicism was also fueled by the very humanities and social sciences courses they took in college. The curriculum of too many educational institutions is rooted in anti-capitalist, socialist philosophies that paint free enterprise as inherently unfair. In fact, our very founding principles of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech are under withering attack on politically-correct university campuses all across America.
But capitalism and free enterprise, not socialism and welfare, have proven to be the key to prosperity and to reducing global poverty and inequality. As recently as 1980, the World Bank estimated that 50 percent of the global population lived in abject poverty. But with the collapse of Soviet communism in 1988 came the global spread of free market institutions, abetted by freer flows of international trade and private capital. By 2015, the World Bank estimated that less than 10 percent of the world’s population was living in extreme poverty. Capitalism has demonstrably improved the lives and general welfare of millions of people.
With such empirical proof, why aren’t more leaders, academic and otherwise, putting forth a spirited defense of free enterprise? We have the evidence to dispel the notion that socialism is inherently fairer than capitalism in its ability to create jobs and reduce poverty. We can show that success lies with individual opportunity, which in turn leads to wealth creation.
As I said, we have done millennials a disservice. Perhaps a booming economy eventually roaring along at 4 percent growth and churning out jobs by the hundreds of thousands will change the minds of America’s youth when it comes to capitalistic free enterprise. Perhaps not. But socialism is certainly not the answer to America’s woes.
"When 40% of the people pay 92% of the taxes, you have a problem with work ethic. Too much scamming goes on in welfare"
I sure hope they grow out of the nonsense.
We have to take back education or we are doomed.
I call for the separation of education and state!
Close down the Dept of Education!
Make vouchers and school choice the law of the land.
The millennial generation is also sharply higher in terms of a higher share of minorities, thanks to uncontrolled immigration. Those minorities are probably the core support for socialism. They are the most likely to accept the left wing propaganda without any questioning about it.
This isn't because the Marxist education industry hasn't tried to convince them of the importance of environmental issues. It's just that it's hard to convince people that there ARE any serious environmental issues when they've never breathed foul air, never seen a polluted creek, and grew up in neighborhoods where one of the biggest problems is the abundance of animals that used to be seen only in the wilderness but have now become suburban pests (raccoons, skunks, deer, and even coyotes, mountain lions and black bears).
Don't these brats know how to read on their own?
Excellent point! Some can remember when Pittsburgh was dark at noontime and raw sewage from five cities flowed into Lake Erie. The environment now is cleaner than it has ever been since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Thanks! I’m always amazed at how much wildlife I now see in places that used to be contaminated industrial areas along creeks and rivers.
Not if it's more than 140 characters.
A couple of years ago a guy shot a coyote less than
a mile from Downtown Pittsburgh.
If you gave a millennial a copy of Atlas Shrugged, they would complain that it’s just too long to read, I mean, look at it. Even a digital copy would take up too many gigabytes on their iPhone. You expect them to read that? (Their thoughts, not mine).
Two nephews and a niece are Bernie fans; very sad
Of course, because THAT would take effort.
i like that people that vote for a living not work for it..sums its up Don’t you think
Ask these dummies to recite Rumplehair’s legislative accomplishments...at least Granny Bobblehead got a post office renamed
I heard a “man on the street” interview with a bunch of millenials asking them to define socialism. I understand that the interviewer did selective editing, but the answers of those that made it into the report were dumbfounding. I’m sure their ideas of capitalism are equally twisted.
I think the only way to reach them is to show them the Bugs Bunny explanation of capitalism.
They’ve been awash in SOCIAL MEDIA, so when they here Socialism, they LIKE it!
They love capitalism
They love the technology, the Spring Breaks, the fancy cars, the fashion options, hip areas, hip apts
They hate paying for health insurance, much prefer the option not to. After all, it’s their money and their market choices, right?
They are just too naive to know they’re the most me me me generation, even worse than Xers and Boomers.
They’ll learn the hard way, just like the rest of us. Maturity makes for reality.
Welcome in advance
That’s amazing. There are suburban areas in New Jersey where the populations of animals like raccoons and woodchucks were completely out of control for many years, then dropped off a lot in recent years as coyotes and foxes started showing up in abundance.
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