Latest Great Hope
Elizabeth Warren: "You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."
---- Not just "the rest of us" pay for roads, education, police/fire - so do the factory builders. And honestly, if every hard working family's tax bill was the same as mine (and most are less) for roads, schools, public safety - you would be up spit creek without a paddle or canoe. Warren, typically and politically, fails to mention that the government which would take that "hunk" would squander it on bogus programs and crony contracts (aka spreading the wealth around).
Aside from the obvious pandering of her remark, also consider how times have changed since the era she speaks of, more fitting for the 1930s to 1970s, because most builders now are building factories in China or India or the Mexican maquiladoras. Will Warren's soapbox pander change anything? No, but what the hay - her rhetoric strikes a warm note around progressive campfires. Some say she is what they wanted Obama to be. Huh? Obama was what they wanted him to be until he be. (Excuse my fit of laughter here.)
Lets remember too that in the last few decades the "next kid who comes along" is quite likely stoned and/or drinking on the job and not nearly as dependable as his daddy or granddaddy might have been. And not just in factories. For all the education the rest of us paid for, most folks today cannot handle simple tasks, be it in an office or factory or anywhere. In reality, the decent, honest, working class is disappearing in the land of money for nothing and the chicks are free, or whatever requires the least effort if you can't be a star.
At least once a day I run into one employed person incompetent and unequipped to the point that I ask myself, how has this human managed to survive this long in the world. I can only conclude that equally dull-witted folks cover for one another. And a good deal of the population has somehow come to accept incompetence and indifference in the workplace as a-okay. Or because they are the workplace and dumb enough to believe they are doing their job well.
(I've learned here in Podunk that when I ask for the best plumber, drywall, electrician, etc. in town, the most educated and experienced, they are dumb - which leaves dumber and dumbest who charge less. It's not just in Podunk - big city folks tell me it's the same for them. Once upon a time the phrase "you get what you pay for" meant something. Not true now. Quality these days is custom made with uberprice tags.)
Sometime I wonder, which came first? The greedy cost cutting factory owner or the "next kid" with a hangover and whining, since they both seem to believe "the rest of us" should pay for both of them opting out.
It will not matter how big a "hunk" anyone gives back - unless we stop making excuses for, and pandering to, dumb and dumber who just bark and bark and bark without a real dog in the fight. God bless.
