Posted on 05/31/2015 6:36:52 PM PDT by Kaslin
WHAT THIS country needs, says Bernie Sanders, is less deodorant.
The 73-year-old senator from Vermont, now running for the Democratic presidential nomination, told CNBC's John Harwood in an interview on Tuesday that because American consumers can choose from so many brands of personal-care products, kids are going to bed with empty bellies.
"You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country," Sanders lamented. He didn't explain exactly howthe profusion of toiletries and athletic footwear leads to childhood hunger, but for the only self-described socialist in Congress, it is no doubt a matter of faith that the abundance of capitalism must generate poverty and undernourishment.
In the real world, the opposite is true: Hunger and deprivation are rarest where markets and trade are freest. Food in America couldn't possibly be more plentiful; no one starves because too many economic resources are being channeled into marketing Old Spiceinstead of oatmeal. But in the socialist delusion, centralized control is always preferable to voluntary enterprise. Better that government czars should decide what is produced, and impose their plan from above. After all, when buyers and sellers are left free to choose for themselves, grocery and department store aisles fill up with "too many" goods that consumers desire to buy. And that's not the worst of it: In the process of fulfilling those desires, some capitalists may be getting wealthy.
Sanders's suggestion that more kids would eat if only deodorant came in fewer varieties was roundly mocked. Wherever his collectivist ideology has been enforced, however, the consequences — shortages, rationing, bare shelves, long lines, grinding austerity — are anything but funny.
Unlike John F. Kennedy, who argued that a rising tide lifts all boats, socialist true believers care far less about growing the economy than about decreasing the gap between rich and poor. "If the changes that you envision ... were to result in a more equitable distribution of income but less economic growth," Sanders was asked in the CNBC interview, "is that trade-off worth making?" Yes, he said at once. "The whole size of the economy and the GDP doesn't matter if people continue to work longer hours for low wages.... You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems."
How easy it is to pooh-pooh "growth for the sake of growth" when you're an American politician who makes a good salary and never has to worry about where his next meal will come from. But for the world's destitute — for those who struggle daily just to hold body and soul together — economic growth spells salvation. Sanders has spent decades railing against the rich and bewailing the plight of the poor. Yet for lifting hungry and needy people out of poverty, no force on earth comes close to the growth fueled by free markets and trade.
On Wednesday, one day after Sanders kicked off his White House campaign, the United Nations reported thathunger still afflicts about 795 million people around the globe, or about one out of every nine human beings. As great a challenge as that is, it represents an amazing decrease in the number of undernourished people over the past 25 years. Even though the world's population has grown by 1.9 billion since 1990, there are 216 million fewer men, women, and children threatened by hunger today than there were then. For the first time, we can realistically envision the end of starvation as a global scourge.
Thanks to advances in agricultural science — especially the famous "Green Revolution" for which the American biologist Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — it is possible to grow enough food to feed a world with 7 billion people. But it takes the dynamism and productivity of markets, and the prosperity ignited by trade, to make that food available and affordable to the great majority of the human family.
Perhaps Sanders doesn't grasp that, but the UN agency most concerned with feeding the hungry does.
"Economic growth is necessary for alleviating poverty and reducing hunger and malnutrition,"emphasizes the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in the new hunger report. "Countries that become richer are less susceptible to food insecurity."
Blasting greedy billionaires and sneering at the multiplicity of deodorant brands "when children are hungry" appeals to a slice of the electorate. But populist rhetoric from a "humorless aging hippie peacenik Socialist" (as Sanders was once described in a New York Times Magazine profile) doesn't fill empty food bowls. Market economies do.
"Markets that function well are important for promoting food security and nutrition," the UN report says. "Markets ... ensure food availability."
From China to Tanzania, from North Korea to the Soviet Union, socialism over the past century condemned countless children — and their parents — to hunger, malnutrition, and famine. Deodorant never hurt a soul.
Hate, yes. The two are really the politics of resentment.
Sanders 2016: The Candidate Your Grandfather Smells Like.
So he’s wanting to gang-rape the deodorant industry.
Democrats believe production is zero-sum, that value can never be created, that all of human wealth is finite and can only be reapportioned - preferably by the political machinations of an enlightened vanguard of elites (i.e. Democrats).
They defy logic at every turn. They are unmoored from wisdom. They are theoreticians who have ever plotted only failure, misery and destruction. Yet they are adamantly convinced that the next generation of faculty lounge papsmear must inevitably bring about Utopia on earth.
Erudition demands a single word to swiftly identify and describe these people with a proper mnemonic association. So far, all I can come up with is “assh*les.”
“The two are really the politics of resentment.”
Without question. They are also the politics of choice for those like Sanders who elicit personal gain by destructively and selfishly tapping into that resentment.
An old, but still stinking 60’s Hippie ass####.
I hated those jerks back then, and I hate them just as much now.
An old, but still stinking 60’s Hippie ass####.
I hated those jerks back then, and I hate them just as much now.
...because their momma is selling their EBT cards for dope
Who and where are these hungry children in America? I'm thinking it's only those who are being intentionally neglected; and more taxpayer-funded freebies isn't going to change that.
Childhood obesity is a serious problem among so-called "low-income" people. But between Food Banks, Charities, Government Feeding Programs, etc, unless somebody is intentionally hiding under a rock - I don't believe there is any real childhood hunger in America.
In the interest of Full Disclosure: I've done volunteer work for a social-services organization. Abuse and neglect are big problems. Hunger, due to lack of food availability - not so much.
Facists.
I work at a sushi bar in Arlington, near the sports stadia. (Traffic flows, roadblocks are such a nightmare on game-days, I sometimes arrive late for the dinner-rush)
A lot of our customers are Amish, especially on the weekend.
It is a rather expensive place; it was even declared "Best Sushi in Arlington" once, by some local newspaper epicure/critic.
I'm quite sure the weekend customers stop by the grocery store just before coming here, to make a withdrawal from their LoneStar card—Texas doesn't have EBT-ATMs.
It's either that, or they deal in various kinds of dope—a lot of them have that look...one of them even sets up a small store-front selling sundries, candy, soda, &c. in the men's bathroom.
The resultant waste is such that the head chef doesn't even need to make me dinner on Friday or Saturday—there's enough reject sushi for myself! (That is, the food that I pick off just before I wash the plates; it's still good, no health risks there, for the most part)
Sometimes, when the plates come around to me, they are still full—the food completely untouched.
This is precisely why I rail hard against AFDC/TANF/direct cash welfare benefit transfers. It's mostly one big, colossal waste of OUR taxes.
While I hate the idea of redistributive welfare programmes, I only tolerate their LIMITED existence until such time we can get the churches, charities, &c. to get off their collective duff, and actually HELP the poor...
sarc (If you haven't figured out by now that I'm the lone bus-boy on the weekend, you have a few problems :-P) /sarc
I'm American all the way through—but I write English like a Brit—don't judge me. :-)
Now that I've got that rant off my chest, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Maybe because VT voters are to the left of CA voters.
Is that even possible?
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
Yes, Vermont would be the exception. The east coast is only filled with US Constitutional Republic believing patriots. Right?
The concept and reality of free markets is far too big to be grasped by an mental juvenile like Sanders. He does not have an alternative, equally legitimate vision. He simply does not know what he is talking about. He does know how to cultivate power by misleading the mislead able children that make up way too much of our electorate.
How can we remedy this? Only by seeing that characters like Bernie remain peripheral comic/politicians, and never gain the power they have neither a right to nor capacity to use responsibly. Problem is, we have a media and academe saturated with this kind of drivel, and thus we all suffer.
No, I wouldn't say that about either coast.
Jesus Christ: You can’t impeach Him and He ain’t gonna resign.
Good. Let’s keep the real divisions obvious.
In DC black people are not buying the Socialist message. There was an articulate young black man, a self declared Socialist of the Marxist/Leninist variety and he only got about 3.5% of the total vote for Council.
On the other hand the Democrats of DC have done a splendid job of making it very difficult for any poor person to be an independent entrepreneur by becoming a street vendor, driving a neighborhood vegetable/fruit truck, renting out a room, or starting a small business. Then again, Republicans have not done much either.
Re: “[American] kids are going to bed with empty bellies.”
Several years ago, the University of Washington did a Body Mass Index survey on Seattle neighborhoods that were ranked by income.
The rate of obesity in Seattle’s poorest neighborhoods was 4 to 7 times higher than in Seattle’s most affluent neighborhoods.
I would say that socialist true believers have as their goal the largest gap possible between rich and poor, because their policies couldn't be designed better to have such an outcome.
Look at any socialist country. The populace is almost uniformly dirt poor, while the privileged class--the socialist politicians and their cronies--indulge in luxury life-styles better than those of any king in history. The wealth of their lifestyle is highlighted by the abysmal poverty of the common people--which of course, is another incentive for them to push "socialism." If you're rich, but the common non-rich person has a lifestyle comparable to yours in every way that matters (decent food, housing, clothing, and medical care), then how can you effectively flaunt your wealth? But if the common person has almost nothing, not only do you get to flaunt your superior wealth, you can show off your "generosity" by handing out measly little trinkets and crumbs that cost almost nothing for you to give away.
Is that even possible?
improbale....yes but clearly possible. it strains the imagination to think of anywhere being more “liberal” loopy than the coastal regions of California
Clearly we need a President who can intelligently nationalize the deodorant and sneaker industries and develop a proper 5 year plan that will reduce the options to a more manageable number.
Of course, this will need to be done in a manner that recognizes the unique role of basketball shoes in the black community. The transition back to Chuck Taylor shoes will need to be done through properly trained community organizers.
The change to a single deodorant scent is less controversial and can be accomplished by including free drugs and contraceptives in the uni-sex deodorant packaging.
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