I am terrible at thinking on my feet.
Sure, I’ve uttered my share of witticisms and even profundities, but far more often than not, they have been the result of past conversations or debates that I’d had wherein the other party left me dumbstruck or unsuccessfully scrambling for an answer. I’m the person who has the perfect comeback . . . five minutes later. In short, I am one of the last people you want spearheading your side of an argument in an impromptu debate.
Awhile back, a dear friend of mine posted on his Facebook page his belief that a large (and growing) federal government has given us, as Americans, more freedom than the much smaller and limited one that we started with. This felt profoundly wrong to me, but pontificate as I might (and did), I still couldn’t put my finger on why his reasoning was flawed. I chewed on the matter for quite some time afterward; what follows is the result of that mental mastication.
——–
This is the story of Jim. Jim was an average young man in an average American town. He earned above-average grades in high school, and went on to attend an average American college. Jim’s parents, while not destitute, were in no position to help him with finances, so Jim worked full-time at an average college job to support himself, riding his bike to school, then to work, and then back to his far-below-average studio apartment to study, eat average college food, and fall asleep. The next day began the whole process again.
One day, while Jim was enjoying a rare free moment, his uncle paid him a surprise visit. Jim’s uncle was a wealthy man, though no one quite knew what he did to amass his fortune. He entered the tiny rented room with a warm greeting, and sat on the edge of the bed. After exchanging pleasantries and small talk, Jim’s uncle asked if there was anything he could do to make Jim’s life easier. Jim didn’t want to impose, so he politely declined. Jim’s uncle pressed his point, saying, “Jim, I’ve known you for longer than you remember, and it pains me to see you having to struggle this way. Here,” and he pulled a small black card out of his jacket pocket. Jim tried to refuse, but his uncle insisted. “Use this as you see fit,” he said to the young man. They talked awhile longer about various family members and Jim’s classes, and then, after affectionate goodbyes, Jim’s uncle left.
Jim followed his uncle to the door, and shut it after him. He then turned over the small card in his hand. It was a credit card. . . sort of. There was a sixteen-digit number on it and a magnetic strip , but no expiration date, no name, no logo, not even a signature bar. Just a wholly unremarkable, glossy black card. Jim wondered how it could even work, and then decided that he would not find out. He was determined to go it on his own, just like his parents had taught him. “Earn what you get, or there’s no joy in having it,” his father liked to say. Jim went to throw the card away, but hesitated. It couldn’t hurt, after all, to have options, could it? That’s really all he was doing, was being careful, he told himself as he put the card in his desk.
For months, Jim rarely even thought of the card. Then, one day he noticed a letter from the college in his stack of mail. Times had grown tough not just for Jim, but for everybody, and money was tight all around. Though Jim had carried his above average grades with him to college, they were no longer enough to maintain his scholarship. Jim sat crumpled in his chair, head in hands. He would have to delay his schooling and spend the next semester saving for the following term. The thought was not at all appealing – hadn’t he suffered enough? He worked his heart out and sacrificed so much; how could this happen? Suddenly, that little black card loomed large in Jim’s mind. Surely it wouldn’t hurt to use it for his living expenses. Not luxury items – just the stuff he was already using. Then he would work even harder, improve his grades so he could get his scholarship back, and then put the card away. Other students lived on credit – was it really so wrong?
Jim put his plan into action, knowing full well that he might regret it when the bill came. He determined he would cross that bridge when he came to it. He was a little nervous the first time he swiped the little black card, but it worked just fine. All he needed to do was sign. He stayed true to his word, using his credit judiciously. A month passed. Then two. Jim checked every day, but no bill came to him. Worried, he called his uncle. “Don’t worry about it, my boy, it’s all taken care of,” Jim’s uncle reassured him. “But . . . ” Jim started to protest, but his uncle cut him off: “It’s all taken care of. I meant what I said – use it as you see fit. I’ll tell you what: I’ll arrange with your employer to automatically deduct payments from your paycheck, alright?” This eased Jim’s mind, and he let the matter go.
In the ensuing months, Jim came to rely on the card more and more. He asked his boss to move him to part-time hours: With all his needs paid for, he could start focusing on his wants, and one of those was more leisure time. The money he earned could also go to wants, rather than needs. Jim felt as if the weight of the world had been removed from his shoulders. His wants, however, soon outstripped his income, and he found himself pulling out that little black card more and more often. The card seemed to have no limit; though his purchases grew progressively larger, the card was never declined.
Jim was coming out of the store after one of his larger purchases when he saw a man standing at a nearby intersection holding a cardboard sign. Jim walked over to talk to the man, and found that the man, Andrew, had fallen on hard times. He had lost his job, could not find another one, and had a family to feed, so he stood on the corner begging strangers for money. Andrew’s story troubled Jim; he’d experienced hard times himself, and could not imagine having to face unemployment with a family to feed. Jim quickly told Andrew about his little black card, and offered to use it for Andrew’s family’s expenses as well. Andrew, overcome with emotion, threw his arms around Jim and sobbed thanks into his shoulder.
Word of the miraculous card spread quickly, and soon Jim was inundated with requests for help. Some seemed more legitimate than others, but who was he to judge? Jim accepted them all, and it seemed that in no time, half of the town was dependent on the card Jim’s uncle had given to him. Jim was thrilled that he could help so many people. Gone were his days of counting change for food; now, because of him, those days were gone for so many others, too. “This,” Jim thought to himself one night, “is freedom.”
Jim’s philanthropic ventures weren’t the only thing on his mind. There was a young lady he’d met in class. Sharla. She was beautiful, intelligent, kind – everything Jim was looking for. And, though he could hardly believe it, she reciprocated his feelings. It wasn’t long until he had a ring on her finger. Money no longer being an object, he made sure that their wedding was everything she had ever wanted. He thought nothing could have made him happier, but he had to admit he was wrong on that point on the day that Sharla gave birth to their first child, a darling baby boy who they called Sam.
Sam was just a few days old, sleeping in his mother’s arms in their comfortable home, when there came a knock at the door. Jim ran to answer it and found a delivery man standing there with a package. Jim signed for the package, thanked the man, and went back in the house. He turned the box over to see not his name, or Sharla’s, but Sam’s. Thinking it was a gift for the new baby, he opened it. He was puzzled to find not gifts, but a stack of official-looking pages, each covered in very small print. He grabbed the first one and began to read.
Jim could feel the blood draining from his face. His hands began to shake. This had to be wrong, this could not be possible. He raced for the phone, punched in his uncle’s number, and demanded that the old man get there NOW. Jim paced the floor while he waited, unable to continue perusing the pages in the box. Not possible. Not possible.
Jim’s uncle knocked on the door in short order. Jim nearly wrenched the door off its hinges, grabbed his uncle by the arm, dragged him to the box, and thrust the first paper into his face. “How?” bellowed Jim. “How is this possible?!”
Jim’s uncle stepped back, stroked his white goatee thoughtfully, and calmly said, “Jim, I told you it was taken care of. You never asked how.”
Jim’s eyes grew wide. “How could you do this to me? To him? My son, he’s just a baby! How on earth can he pay this off?” Another thought gripped Jim, turning him paler still. “Half the town is living on this card! They depend upon it! I can’t just cut them off! But if I don’t . . . ” His sentence trailed off as he stared in anguish at his son, who had somehow slept through Jim’s outburst.
Jim’s uncle nodded gravely. “I’ll tell you what, Jim. I can help you with this problem as well.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out another card, just like Jim’s, but with a different number on it. “Give him this when he’s of age.”
Jim was flabbergasted. “You cannot be serious,” he said. Another thought occurred to him, and he grasped at it like a drowning man lunging for a piece of driftwood. “What about the payments that were being taken from my paychecks?”
Jim’s uncle laughed. “My boy, surely you don’t believe you made this much?!”
“Well, no,” admitted Jim, clinging to this last tiny piece of hope, “but it’s got to count for something, right?”
Jim’s uncle laughed again. “My boy,” he said again, slightly shaking his head from side to side, “how do you think I’ve made my fortune?” He stuffed the second card into his stunned nephew’s hands, nodded to an equally stunned Sharla, and escorted himself out, leaving a horrified silence in his wake.
———
And now I will ask you the question that was surely running laps around Jim’s beleaguered mind: If you have to steal from and enslave your own children to achieve it, can you truly call it freedom?
Great piece. Proves a HUGE point. Kudos!!
Yes, that was an amazing read.
The magnitude of consequences is this immense; if only more people on both sides would understand we are fighting for the existance of not just oursevles but our progeny as well.
Awesome piece Angela.
Holy! Wow! Loved it!
Guys, relax, the situation is under control as the following graph shows.
http://tinyurl.com/6mggl9w
[All data from FRED]
You’ll see the huge explosion in American total debt that occurred during the George W Bush years, has more or less stabilized under Obama.
What has happened, as you can see, is that public debt has taken the load off private debt, and that’s exactly what America needs. The public money is keeping the U.S. economy afloat while the private sector de-leverages.
As the private sector continues to recover so will unemployment fall and thus public debt.
If you take care of employment, deficits take care of themselves.
Let’s look at the chart…
Under the first 6 years of Bush we had the housing bubble… massive amounts of over priced homes purchased by private loans. (private debt)
Under the last 2 years under Bush, after warnings from Bush and McCain that the housing bubble was going to crash the system, the housing bubble hit and the government under Bush and then later Obama bailout the private sector and took over the bad debt covering Too Big to Fail’s butts and ensuring they still had capital instead of failing. (public debt)
Was there a transfer of debt, yep and it was all crony capitalism by both Obama and Bush, now all the government debt that is bad loans that corporations should have carried into bankruptcy with is now with the tax payer to pay off instead of too big to fail, failing.
We the taxpayer are now on the hook for billions in bad debt for the housing crisis and auto companies failures, as well as insurance bonds for Europe that AIG paid out and we the taxpayer covered by bailing out AIG. Yep tons of government debt they purchased from the private sector, from companies that should have failed yet now gets to get spread to the tax payer.
Once the rich have been soaked for 50/60% of their income and we get the 800 billion everyone claims, where is the rest of the deficit amount of 400 billion going to come from? Obama’s budget calls for a 1.2 Trillion (last year was 1.7) dollar deficit so the bush tax cuts is around 800 billion according to the left but that still leaves 400 billion they need to cover… oh yeah and since the country as only been paying 4% into social security instead of the 6% as we should have the past 3 years where is that extra money for the trust fund going to come from? Lots of government money needed and a 15 trillion dollar debt at current interest rates.
What happens when our interest rates double? heck what happens when we go to 1% from 0, that is a huge increase in debt interest payments on 15 trillion. This country is going to collapse and it is from the government promising and promising more and more and now that the bill is come due, and the baby boomer generation is ready to stop working and retire guess who picks up the tab. Their kids.
Now I know you don’t live and you are attacking from another country. That is your right and I am glad you take an interest but the finical crisis coming from our government is huge and it will not be pretty when it hits.
Actually, according to the Treasury Dept.’s own numbers, if we maintain present course and speed, the US economy ceases to function in 2027. When Tim Geithner was confronted with this fact, all he could say was, while they had no plan to deal with it, they did know that they didn’t like Rep. Ryan’s plan.
So, yeah, that’s fifteen years. Fifteen years from now, I will be 44. My son will be twenty.
Of course, that fifteen year figure assumes that interest stays at its current (artificially) low rate.
You’re right — nothing to see here, move along.
The Majority of the American people are NOT idiots…
Americans have been paying OFF their private debts because they are SHOCKED over the rapidly RISING GOVERNMENT DEBT and they know very well that when Government SPENDS MORE, INVESTS MORE = TAXED MORE.
Government spending is taxation period.
USDebtClock.org
In a word… brilliant!
“Government spending is taxation period.”
You say that as if it were a bad thing.
[...] http://misfitpolitics.co/2012/04/the-story-of-jim-a-modern-parable-of-debt/ [...]
Your parable demonstrates that a fundamental misunderstanding of economics, that matches your misunderstanding of pretty much everything else you write about.
America’s economy isn’t going to collapse in 15 years or 115 years, America’s debt is mostly (about 75%) money you owe yourself.
In 200 years the U.S. has only paid off its debt once, and that resulted in the massive pre-war depression. In the U.K. we haven’t paid off our debt even once in 400 years.
We’re not paying off our great-grandparents’ debt, and our great-grandchildren won’t be paying off ours.
The only reason the USA even issues “debt” (or bonds as they call it) today is because economists are still stuck on gold-standard misunderstandings.
The USA could be issuing dollar bills instead of t-bills. It amounts to exactly the same thing (including its effect on inflation) but without the nasty word “debt” attached.
Debt is largely a distribution problem as the rich tend to be net creditors and the poor are usually net debtors. Excessive debt, (aside from the 25% of your debt held by foreigners) is in effect a redistribution of income from poorer citizens (average taxpayer) to richer citizens (the bondholders). Excessive debt therefore is a redistribution of capital upwards which counterbalances the progressive features your tax-code has.
America has an issue with debt certainly, but it doesn’t have a debt crisis. Borrowing money is fine in times like these when you have a financial crisis to sort out and borrowing is cheap. America needs to spend 25 years or so to get borrowing down to 50% of GDP or thereabouts. Not starting two wars when simultaneously reducing taxes would help. The last President to reduce debt to any great degree was Bill Clinton (though only 7% of America’s voters were aware of this in a recent poll I saw) – he did it by increasing the number of Americans in work.
So if you are serious about tackling debt, get people back to work – if you tackle unemployment the debt levels will take care of themselves. If you want to massively increase debt go with the Ryan plan.
Excellent writ. It exposes very well the effects of free money on human attitudes and actions.
Massive debt has caused the US credit rating to be dropped significantly for the first time in history. Our standing in the world is undeniably falling, largely due to the actions of a plundering bureaucracy who believes it is their money to spend, without budget, without restraint, and without conscience.
All one needs to do to see the actual effects on countries with massive debt from failed and bankrupt social schemes is look to a crumbling, clueless, and embarrassingly inept Europe.
End bloated bureaucracy and the climate of micro management that is squeezing the life out of the private work force by voting out of congress the spend thrift, control freak, utopian, egotist criminals with absolutely zero plan of action.
We need legislators who understand that added bureaucracy and taxation do not create jobs.
We need a populace who understands the only thing that holds down the American Dream and prevents the ambitious from achieving their own prosperity is an oppressive, edacious, and over reaching government.
Free people are free to prosper by their own means and abilities.
“Massive debt has caused the US credit rating to be dropped significantly for the first time in history.”
“For the first time in history, Standard and Poor’s, one of several credit rating agencies, on Friday, August 5, downgraded the credit rating of the U.S. government. Why? Standard and Poor’s cited two main reasons: first, and foremost, the inability of Congress to work together, specifically citing the fact that “THE MAJORITY OF REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS CONTINUE TO RESIST ANY MEASURE THAT WOUDL RAISE REVENUES,” and two, the lack of any increase in revenue in the recent credit ceiling and deficit reduction bill. To put it even more simply, politicians — especially Republicans — aren’t doing their jobs.”
source http://thenewcivilrightsmovement.com
“We need a populace who understands the only thing that holds down the American Dream and prevents the ambitious from achieving their own prosperity is an oppressive, edacious, and over reaching government.”
Actually, what America needs is what they already have, a “populace” that understands that the entire economy cannot be run for the benefit of billionaires and multinational corporations alone. Therefor those useful idiots of the rich, who campaign against their own personal benefits in favor of billionaires should be treated with derision.
Looks like Obama’s Warren Buffet tax rule is really going to fix the economy.
Apparently, taxing the rich is a real solution to the debt crises.
http://www.politicalmathblog.com/
Yes, bigoted class warfare is definitely the answer.
“Yes, bigoted class warfare is definitely the answer.”
Well then why did you conservatives declare bigoted class warfare in the first place?
If you enact policies that make the mega-rich even richer at the expense of everyone else, you shouldn’t complain when the poor turn round and say “what is the point of this exactly?”
If you choose to declare class war, you shouldn’t be surprised if the poor decide to fight back.
That chart was full of Obama fail.
Poor, oppressed troll is poor and oppressed.
“That chart was full of Obama fail.”
Nope, George Bush fail. have you noticed how the deficit always soars when a Repug is Presiedent? Then it comes down to Earth when guys like Clinton comes to power. That’s because conservatives don’t understand economics, as evidenced by this alleged ‘parable’.
“Poor, oppressed troll is poor and oppressed.”
Thanks for another ‘content-free’ post.
Incidentally, is your definition of a troll…
a) Anyone who disagrees with a conservative?
or
b) Anyone who consistently beats conservatives in a debate?
A troll is anyone who is wiling to be wrong or lie to obfuscate the facts in a debate. Your ‘blame Bush’ strawman for the failure of Obama and his Warren Buffet tax solution qualifies you.
Math tells us taxing the rich isn’t enough to fix things. The troll blames Bush to rationalize an attitude full of fail.
Poor, oppressed troll is still poor and oppressed.
Thanks D.W. as I suspected, your definition of a troll is “Anyone who disagrees with D.W. Robinson”.
I didn’t say that taxing the rich would solve all of your problems, though if you want to massively increase your nation’s debts starting not one but two expensive foreign wars while simultaneously cutting taxes on the rich is a good way to do it.
Sadly nobody in America is calling for massive tax hike on the mega-rich only that their tax rates should be set at around the average rate that it has been for the last 40 years or so. They didn’t bail-out on America then so why should they now?
I say sadly, because I recently read an Academic paper that suggested the ideal rate for taxing the rich (in terms of maximizing revenue and job creation) is around 70%.
So D.W. if you want to post some actual content, rather than your usual couple of disjointed aphorisms, I’d be glad to read it.
You’re a troll for your weak deflection of the massive fail of Obama’s Warren Buffet rule, which is the topic of Koozebane’s post.
Math shows that taxing the rich at 100% wouldn’t fix the problem. Thanks for reaffirming you’re a smug bigot who merely wants what other people have.
Poor, oppressed, and greedy troll remains poor, oppressed and greedy.
Haha.
DW Robinson invented a second persona named Koozebane and pretended it was someone else.
You are a sad old man.
Livin’ rent free.
Only the clueless think it’s a secret I stopped using my original toon handle last year.
Enjoy all my old posts.
I’m sure you’ll linger on every single letter typed like the freaky stalker you are.
Ahahahah! You referred to “koozebane’s post” like it was someone different than you, though!
So fucking weird and creepy!
As for livin rent free: I post here a couple times a week. You’re here every day and you have even invented characters to respond to. Obsessive much?
Holmes has cleverly solved the utterly unsolvable.
The sinister ‘fuck with the moron’ case has, at long last, been laid to rest.
Saints be praised.
The needy harpy may now continue on with its dedicated life’s work of scouring the interwebs for traces of my presence.
Wow, D.W. I have misjudged you, you really are this vacuous, aren’t you?
“Math shows that taxing the rich at 100% wouldn’t fix the problem.”
Correct.
“Math shows” that the figure is 70%.
Taxing at 100% wouldn’t pay for a single year of Obama’s expenditures. Your numbers are a fantasy, coming from a fantasy world.
Poor, oppressed, and greedy troll still remains poor, oppressed and greedy.
If 100% taxation is slavery…what is 70%?
Serfdom.
IT’S OFFICIAL:
Intellectuals have hatched a feudal society from within the confines of their mentally inbred think tanks.
Now that’s real progress.
Ahhh Koozelame, you’re back to talk yet more bollocks.
Multi-millionaires are just serfs!
Of course they are! Those poor downtrodden ultra-rich, it must be hell being them. How much better it must be to live in poverty and not have to live the life of a serf!!
Oh by the way, the figures in that last link you gave us are completely wrong. Apparently that guy is famous for cherry-picking his data sets and ignoring inconvenient data that doesn’t fit his theories.
I’ll post the link to the correct data on a separate posting.
Ta daaaaa
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2012/01/ctj_calculates_buffett_rule_wo.php
A whole 50 billion! That would take the red mark down halfway to the first notch on the graph and last the federal government five whole days. Another massive fail.
Math is obviously not a troll strong point. But raiding private bank accounts is.
70% taxation is definitely serfdom to anyone who would have to pay it. Your bigotry is showing again, troll.
Stupid, greedy troll is very stupid and greedy.
The inbred intelligentsia’s new slogan:
Slavery Lite – Because you owe it to the State.
Now with 30% less slavery than the old Democrat Party!
Honestly you people, are so gullible. Usefull idiots for the rich.
If a billionaire asked you to jump of a cliff, would you do that as well?
The mega-rich are not slaves or surfs, boys and girls, they are the rich. They are using you.
And if you want a prime example of why you are going to lose the next Presidential election that’s it right there.
Let me explain this in terms so simple that even somebody as simultaneously stupid and arrogant as D.W. can understand it.
The only way to balance the budget is to grow revenue. Giving tax breaks to the rich does not grow the economy because another $100,000 either way to them is not going to change their spending habits. However giving that same money back to the poor and the middle class will change habits, and thus grow the economy.
If you take care of unemployment the deficit will take care of itself.
Understood. You’re a class bigot who thinks everyone owes the government and a deluded fanboy who thinks an additional raided 50 billion is a success for Obama.
30% less slavery does says it all. See you in November, fanboy.
Another withering attack from the king of vacuous there.