Once upon a time, there were two brothers. One brother was shiftless and lazy. He would hang around the farm and do nothing all day long. The other brother was very motivated and a hard worker. He would get up early and milk the cows, he would clean up after breakfast and would immediately go out to the fields to help his father plow and sow. The other brother would lie around and bemoan his station.

The hard working brother learned about all about life as a farmer. He learned how to take care of the animals. He learned how to repair the tractors and equipment.  He learned how to take care of the finances and how to run the family farm. The other brother learned how to sleep in and get away with doing as little as possible on a daily basis.

One day, the parents decided that they would start giving the brothers an allowance from the proceeds of the farm’s income. Both brother’s stood with anticipation as the aging father sat down at the dining room table and slowly took out the checkbook and started writing the checks. The lazy, shiftless, do-nothing brother got his check. $12,000!  He immediately began grumbling. This was not enough to buy that new car he had been wanting. He stormed up to his room and slammed the door. The hard working brother received his check from his father. $12,000?  This must be a mistake he thought. But he thanked his father and went to work in the fields.

The next month, the brothers again sat at the dining room table with their father as he wrote them their monthly allowance. Again, both brothers received $12,000.00. The lazy brother again complained, grumbled and stormed to his room. This time the hard working brother was a little more concerned. Why was he receiving the same amount as his good for nothing brother? After all, wasn’t he doing all the work on the farm?

Another month and another allowance, and again the brothers received the same amount. The hard working brother became bitter and figured that if his brother, who did nothing to help the farm, got the same amount of pay as he did for all the work he put in, then why should he work as hard. So the following month, he did less. The cows went without milking, and the fences went without repair.

Another month, and another allowance. Again, the allowance was the same and the formally hard working brother slowed down his work even further. What was the point? If the income was the same why should he be doing all the work? The tractors sat un-repaired. The fields sat un-plowed.

Another month, another allowance. This time the allowance was less than prior months. The farms income was substantially less as the fields did not produce enough harvest and there was not as much milk to sell. The hard working brother became upset and did even less work the following month.

And so it went. Month after month, the farm saw less and less income and the brothers received less and less allowance. Finally the formally hard working brother joined his lazy brother on the couch and watched “Real Housewives of Morse Bluff, Nebraska”. The farm fell into ruin and by the time the aging father realized what was happening, it was too late. The farm was foreclosed and the father was forced to file bankruptcy. The brothers moved to the big city and found jobs in the janitorial services.

And they lived unhappily ever after.  The End.

Okay, this may not be the best fairy tale to tell your children as the lay in bed falling asleep. But the fact is, this was not a fairy tale. Welcome to socialism!  This scenario unfolded all over the former Soviet Union. Until they government could no longer prop up its citizens and they were forced to break apart. And while the break up of the Soviet Union may have been a good thing for America, (after all, it ended the “cold-war”) it was not a good thing for the Soviets. Guess what?  America is now on track to follow these same mistakes!

Still not following?

Two men go into a restaurant. One orders a small chicken burrito,side salad and an Iced Tea. The other orders the lobster dinner with steak!. Mmmmmmmmmm.  Surf & Turf !  He also orders the appetizer and a bottle of wine, which he promptly drinks by himself. After dinner the two men sit back, loosen their belts and pick their teeth. Then the waiter arrives with the check. The man that had the lobster dinner and drinks, reviews the check slowly then looks up at this friend and says “Okay then,  so we split the check 50/50?”

Can you imagine the frustration of the man that only ordered the cheap unassuming chicken burrito? Is it starting to sink in yet?

After this last election, I kept hearing the slogan “America has voted”.  Well okay,. but there is another slogan that keeps popping up in my head. “Be careful what you wish for” We as American’s need to see with better eyes. Not for short term “fixes” but for long term solutions.

Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known as George Santayana, said it best. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. We have apparently developed a rather short term memory here in America.

Socialism does not work on any levels. And while it may be easy to point fingers at the high income earners, the same socialistic behavior is dangerous at the middle class workplace. Equal pay for unequal work will crush an economy. In the short term, it may look like a good idea, but not in the long term.

Any pilot of a small plane can tell you, when circling an object on the ground, if you are not paying attention, the radius of your circle becomes smaller and smaller and eventually becomes so tight that you are unable to pull out and you continue to spiral right into the ground.  BOOM! Likewise, if we are not paying attention, the economy can also spiral out of control until its inevitable crash. This is the current situation playing out in Greece.

Thomas Jefferson once said “A government big enough to give you everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have….”

So who’s to blame? The person taking the handout from the government or the government itself?

A man and his wife are waiting for the bus. They are down to their last $2.00 and are planning to use it for bus fare. A homeless man asks him for money and the man gives him his last two dollars. The wife is visibly shaken and very upset. Now they have no money for the bus fare and the bus is approaching. Is she mad at the homeless man? Probably not. She is more likely mad at her husband for giving out the last of their money.

Likewise, in the earlier story, can you blame the lazy farm boy for accepting the money from his father? Perhaps the father should have distributed the money based on work performed. Sure, the lazy guy could have worked harder to earn the money, but who among us wouldn’t take the money? The fact is we are all guilty. So we must wake up to the seriousness of the issue at hand.

Race is not the issue. Women’s rights are not the issue. High gas prices are not the issue. The issue is our economy. Without a solid economy the other issues just do not matter.  It’s smoke and mirrors designed to make the people look in a direction opposite the real issues. Like a magician who puts a quarter into his right hand, holds it up and shakes it. The purpose is to make you look at his right hand, all the while his left hand is putting the quarter into his pocket. Poof! Where did the quarter go? While we focus on gas prices and our personal  “rights” the economy is falling off the fiscal cliff.  And if we do not pay attention and learn from our prior mistakes, or even the prior mistakes of others, we will be doomed to repeat them.

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