Capitalist vs Socialist: Debt (Rough Draft)

by Jacob Spinney on November 10, 2010 · View Comments

I’m planning on making this a video soon. Suggestions appreciated.

Capitalist vs Socialist: Debt
cap: Hello, I’m a Capitalist.
soc: And I’m a Socialist.
cap: So Soc, the current unfunded liabilities that the US government owes is around 100 trillion dollars. And that is only covering Social Security and Medicare. How do you propose it pays for this?
soc: That’s easy. We just need to tax the rich more.
cap: Well unfortunately, I don’t think it’s that simple. If you combine all the wealth of every American, you only come up to around 50 trillion dollars. In other words, if the government taxed us all at 100% and took all of our property and auctioned it off to foreigners, it would STILL not have enough money to fund its future obligations for Social Security and Medicare. How could the government possibly pay for this without reducing its obligations?
soc: . . .
cap: There’s no rush. Take all the time you need . . .
soc: I know! We just need to have more children! As long as our population keeps growing, we’ll be able to accommodate the ever increasing retired demographic!
cap: Yeah, that plan worked out great for Bernie Madoff.
soc: EXACTLY! . . . Wait . . . Who’s Bernie Madoff?

Tagged as: Capitalist, debt, Medicare, social security, socialist, unfunded liabilities

  • http://irsage.blogspot.com Isaiah

    The socialist might say “well with these increases in the money supply maybe the interest rates on the government’s debt can be kept low enough for all the debt to be eventually paid off,” or he might say “Debt? what’s wrong with there being debt? Haven’t you read Hamilton?” Which I think would quickly change the topic of the conversation to banking theory.

  • David Stein

    Do you know what a straw man fallacy is, Jacob? Stop. You’re making us non-religious people look really, really bad.

  • http://www.youtube.com/jacobspinney Jacob Spinney

    Yes. I am aware of a straw man fallacy. What exactly am I strawmanning? This is a summary of a host of conversations I have had with numerous people classifying themselves as socialists.

  • http://www.facebook.com/maksenton Maty Aksenton

    He makes non-religious people look bad? Funny, and I thought it’s all those economic statist-atheists who think by virtue of being atheists they somehow become some sort of economic geniuses who make us non-religious people look bad.

  • http://www.facebook.com/maksenton Maty Aksenton

    “soc: I know! We just need to have more children!”

    If that’s what welfare were advocating, they could have actually made themselves a bit more useful, considering the demographic problems many countries are currently facing. But unfortunately, most of them would stand BOTH for their beloved giant welfare state AND would scorn those who are having more children out of their pretentious “concern for the environment”, which forces countries to rely on immigrants from potentially problematic and even outright hostile cultures to maintain their giant welfare state.

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