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To: Enlightened1

I used to teach Intro to Economics to college Freshmen. Early in the class, I would tell them I could end poverty overnight. At the time, $9600 was the poverty line for a family of four. When they asked how I could do it, I told them: Gather together every family head making $9600, line them up, and shoot them! The students eyes would go as big as pie plates. After they calmed down, I would ask them: How long will it be before the guy making $9601 starts bitching that he’s the poorest person around. We then launched into a discussion about how a perfectly-even distribution of income kills incentive and why such systems, despite many efforts to implement it, have always failed. The War on Poverty is just another example of a failed attempt to redistribute income on a basis other than productivity.


16 posted on 09/16/2014 7:07:58 AM PDT by econjack (I'm not bossy...I just know what you should be doing.)
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To: econjack

LOL! That’s a great way to grab your students attention! Nice way to plant a seed that perhaps later in their lives will sprout!


18 posted on 09/16/2014 7:12:15 AM PDT by Enlightened1
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To: econjack

I don’t understand how your example ends poverty. I see it as raising the poverty line by one dollar. Then again, I’m stupid.


27 posted on 09/16/2014 7:43:54 AM PDT by VerySadAmerican (Liberals were raised by women or wimps. And they're all stupid.)
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