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You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it.

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J.Braun
Posts: 585 - Karma: 20
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never
failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.  That
class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be
poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
 
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on
Obama's plan".
All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no
one would fail and no one would receive an A...

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.  The
students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little
were happy.  As the second test rolled around, the students who studied
little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they
wanted a free ride too so they studied little.
 
The second test average was a D!  No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.
 
As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and
name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the
benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that
socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the
effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no
one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.
Apr 1 2010 1:03AM
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M+M
Posts: 7935 - Karma: 25
same concept as stock splits? all people with wealth receive an increase by the same amount leading to no overall change at all
Apr 1 2010 10:57AM
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Yung_Gnarley
Posts: 9091 - Karma: 3,016
pre coo.
Apr 1 2010 11:06AM
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nickyp
Posts: 5673 - Karma: 215
Yeah, because adding it all up all and dividing it is all there is to it. That's all there is to economics. 7 years of my life, adding shit up, and dividing it, because that it how the economy works. Nothing more to it. Its simple. Easy.
Theories of collective action, free-rider problems and group coalescence definitely don't all have tens of millions of pages of journals and books, on how to overcome them. Definitely not.











































That is a thought experiment, and anyone who thinks it's true or correct is a fucking idiot.
Apr 1 2010 11:23AM
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sk1er
Posts: 614 - Karma: 10
This little self righteous experiment is far to simple to be compared to how a communist society works. Society holds people accountable, this experiment does not.
Apr 1 2010 11:47AM
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SirFryanator
Posts: 11149 - Karma: 1,415
Capitalism promotes excess use of resources and wealth, while social systems do not. Simple as that. Personally I think that there is no single economic system that works to utilitarian benefit on a large scale.
Apr 1 2010 11:52AM
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.Ben
Posts: 454 - Karma: 14
thank you.  I'm glad someone recognizes this fact.  The idea of capitalism works well but the system we have in place doesn't actually work there is too much corruption.  People need to be rewarded for their effort but since that isn't always the case  something needs to change. 

I am not saying socialism or communism are the answer in fact they will never work but just to set the record straight, Obama is by no means a socialist.
Apr 1 2010 12:04PM
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Delphi
Posts: 3748 - Karma: 36
I've known this for 18 years. This isn't new, I haven't read any of the responses though because I'm sure my blood pressure will go up.
Apr 1 2010 12:05PM
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hurrisun
Posts: 6284 - Karma: 49
comparing money to marks is ridicolous


im here at university right now and sooo many of my class averages are around 60. Kids fail class all the time, Im a shitty as fuck student of course i would take advantage of taking marks from nerds. But its not like the government is taking 50% of ur pay cheque to give to people who are living in a house just as nice as yours. they are taking a lesser precentage so somebody can buy food for their family for the month yes its bullshit that they dont work but their lives are shitty as fuck sure some of them are happy but its just another choice you can make.

if some rich ass business man is sick of giving part of his pay check to "bums" he has 100% right to drop his standard of living and start collecting welfare and living in project housing

if you come from a family where both ur parents work 9 to 5 for shitty pay and ur arguing that its them who truly suffer not even ur sittin here on ur laptop or playing ur x-box going skiing

the people who recieve the government handouts arent doing any of this shit those kids r going to ymca camp and eating cheeze whiz for dinner

like i said you cant be a first world country unless the government can provide more than basic needs to all its citizens


Apr 1 2010 1:04PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 125
you dont really think this is a good analogy do you?

to make an equally poor analogy for capitalism, i could tell you about a class of students wherein everybody gets the grade they deserve. except that a third of them don't have the resources to even make it to class on test day, another 10 or 15 kids get 100s on the test out of pure blind luck, and another handful of kids work their ass off but out of pure bad luck their test get misplaced by the teacher and they fail.
making horribly oversimplified and inaccurate analogies is fucking stupid, yet every time one comes up a bunch of young right wingers post like it's the best satire theyve ever read. it's fine to have conservative views but when theyre based on ignorance and hearsay it's not a legitimate opinion
Apr 1 2010 1:30PM
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+[wall.e]+
Posts: 1928 - Karma: 18
Click for larger image
Apr 1 2010 1:34PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 125
not to be a dick but im pretty sure everyone understands what an analogy is. it's just a really bad analogy. i made an equally bad one for capitalism a few posts up, did that convince you that capitalism is wrong?
Apr 1 2010 2:04PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 125
it's really no worse than yours though, that's my point. like drew and i said above, i understand the idea of an analogy, its just a horrible misrepresentation of the issue.
Apr 1 2010 2:32PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 125
my exact point is that we SHOULDN'T make up simplified analogies to misrepresent important issues. instead we should actually LEARN about the things we're arguing about. example: was it in this thread that someone mentioned they dont want janitors and brain surgeons earning the same wage?
i'm not saying you dont realize this, you make good posts from what i can remember, but people argue so much over "communism" and "socialism" but the truth is MANY of the people involved in the argument don't actually know much at all about socialism or communism. or capitalism for that matter. one of my biggest problems with your analogy is that it implies that capitalism would be represented by the "perfect" system of people simply working for and earning the grade they deserve.
Apr 1 2010 3:04PM
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theabortionator
Posts: 51260 - Karma: 157,382
Where are all the super successful communist countries then? And by successful I'm not just talking with a sound economy. But In solid shape all around. Where people don't have to be forced to do anything, they just do it willingly and work super hard.
Apr 1 2010 4:20PM
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hurrisun
Posts: 6284 - Karma: 49
the analogy makes fine sense the problem is why were even talking about it in the first place socialism has aboslutley zero effect on anybody in north america and stupid ass people read stuff like this and start saying shit like "obama is a socialist and america is doomed to socialism gahh!"
Apr 1 2010 5:11PM
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prontocuts.com
Posts: 5244 - Karma: 42
wat?

i worked for a union for a very short time, and a union is what ruined my dads life. the airline he worked for was LITTERED with union employees that would just clock in, sit in the shop somewhere and hide for 8 hours a day.

Oh yeah, my dad was also a union spokesperson.

I own my own business, I own the capital that is means of my wealth. I am a capitalist
Apr 1 2010 5:15PM
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nickyp
Posts: 5673 - Karma: 215
Read about Olson's Theory of Collective Action.
Apr 1 2010 5:33PM
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Newschool_Pope
Posts: 2473 - Karma: 267
many people in the US have several jobs to pay all bills and work more than 10 hours a day and still dont ahve enough money. if ur parents are rich, your chances to succeed in life, financially, are a lot higher than a person from a poorer social class.
also does communism imply altruistic behavior. behavior that doesnt benefit yourself, but the community. a strong community would then again benefit yourself.

im not in favour of communism, since looking at the past communist governments (soviet, GDR ...)
it has always failed. the theoretical idea of communism is good, but it just doesnt work in society.
in eastern germany people were imprisioned for half a decade in their own country and were spied upon. were forced to love the communist party and had no freedom of speech or idea.
communism doesnt work when its forced upon people.


however on a smaller scale, maybe a village with 100 people or i.e. 20 families, where everybody knows and likes each other, isolated they could live according to the principles of communism, very well. if everyone cared for the other, shared all their resources when in need, help out where possible, worked for a goal collaboratively, and lived peacefully with another, i could see communism to work.


but in a world like we live in, i prefer capitalism, even if the chances in life arent equal, if people have big dreams and want to get rich and live the life they want to, they should be capeable to do so.

Apr 1 2010 5:51PM
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i0z
Posts: 896 - Karma: 40
there would be no need for socialism if people weren't lazy. its mostly likely your own fault if your poor.
Apr 1 2010 5:57PM
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ECfreeski3
Posts: 12019 - Karma: 125
dude. i understand the use for fucking analogies. i know you didnt claim that the analogy is a comprehensive assessment or the end all be all for a conversation about communism. but the analogy SUCKS. it doesnt only grossly oversimplify the issue, it misrepresents it completely.
you're right, it's a way to begin the conversation with someone, but only if you want them to start with a huge right wing bias.
"Just to get the kid to go wow, well yeah I thought governmental socialistic plan X is great but maybe I should re think things because I wouldnt be thrilled about someone taking my assets." so yeah... youre misrepresenting the issue and because of it people think they have a clue what theyre talking about when all they know about "communism" is bullshit analogies like this one. it's not nearly as simple as "the dang ole government's trying to take MY money"
Apr 1 2010 6:12PM
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Newschool_Pope
Posts: 2473 - Karma: 267
exactly what i thought. when teaching someone a controversial and important topic like communism vs. capitalism, the examples you use should not be biased, or else the one taught will have a biased opinion as well.

no one here is saying communism is great, but this example is a sheer misrepresentation of the situation and is political brainwash.
Apr 1 2010 6:23PM
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nickyp
Posts: 5673 - Karma: 215
THIS. OH SO THIS
Apr 1 2010 7:15PM
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DrZoidberg
Posts: 5675 - Karma: 4,268
Maybe you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it, but if you multiply wealth times 1/wealth while dividing by the square root of poor as the national salary approaches an unknown limit, then you might get somewhere.
Apr 1 2010 8:27PM
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MADDECENT
Posts: 5579 - Karma: 951
Communism is such a good theory, but it can never work
Apr 1 2010 8:37PM
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OhMyBosh
Posts: 5056 - Karma: 170
Then what exactly makes it a good theory?
Apr 1 2010 9:09PM
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vailsux.com
Posts: 1769 - Karma: 440
where is ben?
Apr 1 2010 9:15PM
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