Back from an early morning bike ride. Have been thinking about our General Election - my mind is fuelled by the heightened political debate and release of the leading parties manifestos. It is exasperating. I could spend hours writing about it but I do not really have the time and actually what would be the point? I am writing this short blog for my own sanity - based on my life's experience - ha!
First of all a bit of an old chestnut. Was it Churchill who said - someone did " if you are not a socialist when you are 20 you have no heart - if you are not a capitalist (Conservative) by the time you are 40 you have no head. This is my experience. It would be lovely to believe everything in life can be rosy and the nature of human kind - fair minded, reasonable, positively motivated and decent. In reality that is not the case. Many people take advantage. Many people are lazy or feckless. People need to be motivated and the best way is by personal reward and the ability to build a secure and brighter future for themselves and their loved ones.
Here are a couple of truisms. They are not mine - but they make the point I want to make because they reflect REAL life :
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
A parable: The ant worked hard all summer collecting food and preparing his home for winter. The grasshopper played all summer not doing any work. When winter came the grasshopper had no food. No worries, the grasshopper elected a socialist leader that took away 40 percent of the ants food and gave it to the grasshopper. The next year the ant thought what is the point of working hard if the government is going to take it off me. He decided that the new government would have to take care of him the same way so he played all summer too, as did all the other hard working producing ants. When winter came, there was no food and they all starved to death.
My sincere conclusion is the only thing that works and is sustainable is capitalism but I do not support totally unbridled capitalism because some regulation IS required to curb the likely excesses of a deregulated market environment. I am a "caring" capitalist. I acknowledge in any society there will be vulnerable people who need help and it is morally right to help them. However as Maggie Thatcher said (and socialists appear to have never learned) "compassion is rarely enough - you have to earn it first before you can give it away.
You earn it first by facilitating business activity. You have to encourage self help - reward entrepreneurship - allow people to accumulate wealth to secure the future of themselves and their families. If you deny them this motivation by taxing them to the hilt in order to live out the socialist dream of a wider society it will end in tears. It always has before and it always will because you CANNOT buck human nature.
First of all a bit of an old chestnut. Was it Churchill who said - someone did " if you are not a socialist when you are 20 you have no heart - if you are not a capitalist (Conservative) by the time you are 40 you have no head. This is my experience. It would be lovely to believe everything in life can be rosy and the nature of human kind - fair minded, reasonable, positively motivated and decent. In reality that is not the case. Many people take advantage. Many people are lazy or feckless. People need to be motivated and the best way is by personal reward and the ability to build a secure and brighter future for themselves and their loved ones.
Here are a couple of truisms. They are not mine - but they make the point I want to make because they reflect REAL life :
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.
A parable: The ant worked hard all summer collecting food and preparing his home for winter. The grasshopper played all summer not doing any work. When winter came the grasshopper had no food. No worries, the grasshopper elected a socialist leader that took away 40 percent of the ants food and gave it to the grasshopper. The next year the ant thought what is the point of working hard if the government is going to take it off me. He decided that the new government would have to take care of him the same way so he played all summer too, as did all the other hard working producing ants. When winter came, there was no food and they all starved to death.
My sincere conclusion is the only thing that works and is sustainable is capitalism but I do not support totally unbridled capitalism because some regulation IS required to curb the likely excesses of a deregulated market environment. I am a "caring" capitalist. I acknowledge in any society there will be vulnerable people who need help and it is morally right to help them. However as Maggie Thatcher said (and socialists appear to have never learned) "compassion is rarely enough - you have to earn it first before you can give it away.
You earn it first by facilitating business activity. You have to encourage self help - reward entrepreneurship - allow people to accumulate wealth to secure the future of themselves and their families. If you deny them this motivation by taxing them to the hilt in order to live out the socialist dream of a wider society it will end in tears. It always has before and it always will because you CANNOT buck human nature.
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