LETTER: If you don’t save money for a rainy day, you are a socialist

To Ozaukee Press:

Capitalism in America is very misunderstood.

Capitalism is the insufferable parent that punishes financial carelessness and rewards good practices.

Capitalism focuses the attention on things that work and starves those that don’t.

Capital can be defined as money left over after the bills are paid.

When you get your paycheck, you allocate your money to food, clothes, shelter and recreation.

Any money left over that is applied to create equity in your home, building a business or for providing for your retirement is called capital.

The person or family who control that money can be defined as capitalists.

A person who spends his entire paycheck year after year and never saves for retirement or for a rainy day is a socialist and will require support from others in his old age.

Government handouts to those who haven’t saved for the future works if not done to excess.

Assuredly, the invisible force called capitalism will unpredictably intervene to limit or end illogical practices. Homelessness, hardship, shortages and confiscatory taxation are the consequences of capital destruction from too much government benevolence.

In a healthy economy there is enough personal and business capital to pay the cost of supporting the government, the freeloaders and the people that are incapable of self-support and still have enough capital left over to avoid shrinking our standard of living.

In a sick economy, there will not be enough capital to pay for all of the social programs that government can contrive.

Too much socialism begets the opposite of capital.

That is called poverty.

Dennis Gasper
Plymouth