Socialist: “Is this the land of milk and honey, or what?”
Capitalist: “Meaning?”
Socialist: “Unlimited wealth.”
Capitalist: “Unlimi—What could that mean? Everything has limits. And as far a wealth goes, I know that though a country can increase its wealth through the discovery of resources and an increase in production, no place on a finite planet has unlimited wealth. Where’s this coming from?”
Socialist: “College loan forgiveness. Joey—Uncle Joey—just announced it.”
Capitalist: “Well, that sounds like a sound idea. Lots of people are strapped by loans for degrees in gender studies (Princeton, Harvard, Yale), astrobiology (Penn State, U. of Washington), bagpiping (Carnegie Mellon), Egyptology (Brown), popular culture (Bowling Green State U.), and viticulture and enology (Cornell).”
Socialist: “Whoa. Just a minute. You probably are dismissive because you are unaware. Take that last major, viticulture and enology. Bet you didn’t know that employment in wineries rose by 153% during the first two decades of this century. Lots of people out there drink wine. Lots of vineyards to tend. Winemaking is a science; it’s chemistry in action. Wealth to be made there, I assure you. Don’t you drink wine?”
Capitalist: “I do. Okay, I’ll knock viticulture and enology off my proscribed list. Nevertheless, a degree at Cornell at more than $50,000 per year costs—if my math is correct; I wasn’t a math major—$200,000. What can a viticulture major make in wages?”
Socialist: “Twenty-nine bucks an hour, maybe $60,000 per year. That’s not too bad. And what about those who have inherited wineries or who have land to start a vineyard? That Cornell education is an investment in a business.”
Capitalist; “I thought you guys were against ownership, but okay, chalk that one up to my ignorance. But I’ve seen some strange majors in colleges, majors that don’t come close to a job in an industry with an average wage of $60,000. And beside that, I’ll have to say that the starting wage for someone who isn’t the boss’s daughter in the wine industry is probably less than $20,000. But take astrobiology. I know for a fact that working astrobiologists have research grants and professorships that pay over 100 grand per year, but they are at the top of their game, so to speak. An aspiring young astrobiologist might be shooting for the stars in salary, but at best isn’t going to make much until he lands that professorship or job with NASA. Most of those advertised jobs require someone with postdoc experience, so that means a bachelors, masters, doctorate, and postdoc work, none of which comes cheaply, and all of which can add up to big loans, and even those don’t guarantee a job unless someone has also published in peer-reviewed journals. Look here. Here’s a position I just found in an online search through NASA: The Hatzenpichler Environmental Microbiology Lab at Montana State wants a postdoctoral researcher to join a collaborative project on the diversity, genomics, physiology, and ultrastructure of Asgard archaea and its (I suppose they didn’t know about antecedents—but hey, do astrobiologists take Composition 101 anymore?—as I was saying, its implications for eukaryogenesis. Got to be lots of jobs there, and this one pays $54,000 plus $4,000 in moving costs—Welcome to Bozeman.”
Socialist: “Just think of the benefit for someone who has a dream to be a gender studies specialist or a bagpipe instructor. This loan forgiveness brightens the future.”
Capitalist: “At someone else’s expense. I read this morning that the loan forgiveness announced by the Teleprompter might cost the nation between $300,000,000,000 and $500,000,000,000 in tax money. Half a trillion bucks. Just another drop in the bucket of national debt that might be thirty trillion right now. Yeah, as you said, ‘land of milk and honey,’ and unending at that. So, what’s the source of the money mean to you personally?”
Socialist: “Nothing, actually. It just comes out of the general fund.”
Capitalist: “Right, and as I say, ‘If it ain’t personal, it ain’t meaningful.’ You can’t see where your tax money goes because someone in government spends it as though it is a gift from the gods. And the waste and corruption that it breeds means nothing to you personally—think of the loss of billions of dollars from the funds allocated for the pandemic. I wonder how many Nigerians are rich because of those missing funds.”
Socialist: “You’re just against equity.”
Capitalist: “No, I’m against socialism and any Administration’s failure to spend responsibly. Giveaways are fine to some extent. Rushing help to victims of catastrophes, for example, helping a nation get through a pandemic—without waste—or spending funds to build commonly used infrastructure—again, without waste. Supporting citizens is a fine idea to some extent, but to have individuals make decisions that the government has to cover isn’t fine with me or with most people who paid off their college loans and now find themselves paying off other people’s loans. Just let me give you something to picture. A national debt of thirty trillion dollars: At six inches per dollar bill, a line of thirty trillion bucks would stretch from Earth to Neptune. The $500,000,000,000 in loan forgiveness would stretch past Saturn. It took Voyager I more than three years to reach Saturn.
“I suppose I am also bothered by the Teleprompter President’s apparent use of this executive order as a vote-getting scheme and by his use of COVID emergency status as his justification after he eliminated the restrictions on migration based on COVID because he said the pandemic was over. I don’t have the exact words of his announcement, but I heard him talk about his dad, his baseball spikes, and about people not being able to afford to get a mortgage because of their college loans. So, his argument includes making getting another loan easier—who knows, maybe setting up a mortgage forgiveness order. He says that 43 million people will benefit and that more than 20 million of them will have their entire loan cancelled. Socialism in action. Milk and honey flowing endlessly.”
Socialist: “You’re just angry because poor people will benefit.”
Capitalist: “Will the poor people who decided not to go to college but rather to open a small business benefit? Should they pay for someone else’s education?”
Socialist: “Yes, because we’re all in this together.”
Capitalist: “By ‘in this’ you mean unending debt?”
Capitalist: “Meaning?”
Socialist: “Unlimited wealth.”
Capitalist: “Unlimi—What could that mean? Everything has limits. And as far a wealth goes, I know that though a country can increase its wealth through the discovery of resources and an increase in production, no place on a finite planet has unlimited wealth. Where’s this coming from?”
Socialist: “College loan forgiveness. Joey—Uncle Joey—just announced it.”
Capitalist: “Well, that sounds like a sound idea. Lots of people are strapped by loans for degrees in gender studies (Princeton, Harvard, Yale), astrobiology (Penn State, U. of Washington), bagpiping (Carnegie Mellon), Egyptology (Brown), popular culture (Bowling Green State U.), and viticulture and enology (Cornell).”
Socialist: “Whoa. Just a minute. You probably are dismissive because you are unaware. Take that last major, viticulture and enology. Bet you didn’t know that employment in wineries rose by 153% during the first two decades of this century. Lots of people out there drink wine. Lots of vineyards to tend. Winemaking is a science; it’s chemistry in action. Wealth to be made there, I assure you. Don’t you drink wine?”
Capitalist: “I do. Okay, I’ll knock viticulture and enology off my proscribed list. Nevertheless, a degree at Cornell at more than $50,000 per year costs—if my math is correct; I wasn’t a math major—$200,000. What can a viticulture major make in wages?”
Socialist: “Twenty-nine bucks an hour, maybe $60,000 per year. That’s not too bad. And what about those who have inherited wineries or who have land to start a vineyard? That Cornell education is an investment in a business.”
Capitalist; “I thought you guys were against ownership, but okay, chalk that one up to my ignorance. But I’ve seen some strange majors in colleges, majors that don’t come close to a job in an industry with an average wage of $60,000. And beside that, I’ll have to say that the starting wage for someone who isn’t the boss’s daughter in the wine industry is probably less than $20,000. But take astrobiology. I know for a fact that working astrobiologists have research grants and professorships that pay over 100 grand per year, but they are at the top of their game, so to speak. An aspiring young astrobiologist might be shooting for the stars in salary, but at best isn’t going to make much until he lands that professorship or job with NASA. Most of those advertised jobs require someone with postdoc experience, so that means a bachelors, masters, doctorate, and postdoc work, none of which comes cheaply, and all of which can add up to big loans, and even those don’t guarantee a job unless someone has also published in peer-reviewed journals. Look here. Here’s a position I just found in an online search through NASA: The Hatzenpichler Environmental Microbiology Lab at Montana State wants a postdoctoral researcher to join a collaborative project on the diversity, genomics, physiology, and ultrastructure of Asgard archaea and its (I suppose they didn’t know about antecedents—but hey, do astrobiologists take Composition 101 anymore?—as I was saying, its implications for eukaryogenesis. Got to be lots of jobs there, and this one pays $54,000 plus $4,000 in moving costs—Welcome to Bozeman.”
Socialist: “Just think of the benefit for someone who has a dream to be a gender studies specialist or a bagpipe instructor. This loan forgiveness brightens the future.”
Capitalist: “At someone else’s expense. I read this morning that the loan forgiveness announced by the Teleprompter might cost the nation between $300,000,000,000 and $500,000,000,000 in tax money. Half a trillion bucks. Just another drop in the bucket of national debt that might be thirty trillion right now. Yeah, as you said, ‘land of milk and honey,’ and unending at that. So, what’s the source of the money mean to you personally?”
Socialist: “Nothing, actually. It just comes out of the general fund.”
Capitalist: “Right, and as I say, ‘If it ain’t personal, it ain’t meaningful.’ You can’t see where your tax money goes because someone in government spends it as though it is a gift from the gods. And the waste and corruption that it breeds means nothing to you personally—think of the loss of billions of dollars from the funds allocated for the pandemic. I wonder how many Nigerians are rich because of those missing funds.”
Socialist: “You’re just against equity.”
Capitalist: “No, I’m against socialism and any Administration’s failure to spend responsibly. Giveaways are fine to some extent. Rushing help to victims of catastrophes, for example, helping a nation get through a pandemic—without waste—or spending funds to build commonly used infrastructure—again, without waste. Supporting citizens is a fine idea to some extent, but to have individuals make decisions that the government has to cover isn’t fine with me or with most people who paid off their college loans and now find themselves paying off other people’s loans. Just let me give you something to picture. A national debt of thirty trillion dollars: At six inches per dollar bill, a line of thirty trillion bucks would stretch from Earth to Neptune. The $500,000,000,000 in loan forgiveness would stretch past Saturn. It took Voyager I more than three years to reach Saturn.
“I suppose I am also bothered by the Teleprompter President’s apparent use of this executive order as a vote-getting scheme and by his use of COVID emergency status as his justification after he eliminated the restrictions on migration based on COVID because he said the pandemic was over. I don’t have the exact words of his announcement, but I heard him talk about his dad, his baseball spikes, and about people not being able to afford to get a mortgage because of their college loans. So, his argument includes making getting another loan easier—who knows, maybe setting up a mortgage forgiveness order. He says that 43 million people will benefit and that more than 20 million of them will have their entire loan cancelled. Socialism in action. Milk and honey flowing endlessly.”
Socialist: “You’re just angry because poor people will benefit.”
Capitalist: “Will the poor people who decided not to go to college but rather to open a small business benefit? Should they pay for someone else’s education?”
Socialist: “Yes, because we’re all in this together.”
Capitalist: “By ‘in this’ you mean unending debt?”
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