We frequently see advertisements claiming FREE this or FREE that. Buy one Get one FREE. Buy three tires and the fourth one is FREE. FREE software or FREE download. FREE healthcare, FREE college.
Many years ago when my children were little we enjoyed the fall Exchange Club Fair. The sounds, sights and smells were an inauguration of fall and the changing of seasons. One of the biggest wastes of money had the biggest attraction from the “hawkers’ along the midway. The ring toss, darts at balloons, basketball toss, cover the dot, knock down the bottles. “Hey kid, try your luck for a dollar!” Though I could never prove it, I always believed the fair paid a few people to walk around with the huge stuffed animals without winning them.
I considered it my fatherly duty to educate my kids as to the “trick” of each game, which made something seemingly easy turn into rarely or impossible to win. While the basketball may have been the right size, the hoop was slightly smaller. The wind from the incoming dart caused the balloon to move out of the way of the tip. On the ring toss, the bottles were so close together that only a perfect toss from directly above (as the carny would demonstrate) could actually fit on a bottleneck. To cover the dot, air under the card being dropped would cause it to unpredictably slide sideways as it approached the table.
I must have been effective as in later years they would watch a game and ask me what the “catch” was. A proud Dad moment I could feel internally but few would understand. I am pretty sure that brief lesson stuck as now my adult children (that sounds strange) can read into advertising gimmicks or FREE offers and find the “gotcha.”
In today’s political climate, we are also inundated with claims of providing FREE this or FREE that if we elect this candidate or that candidate. Actually, this is not so new a concept as back in the 20s (that’s 1920s), the promise of “a chicken in every pot and car in every garage” was a promise of easy prosperity if not FREE.
It is important for people to understand the government has no money except that it extracts from the governed, the people of our nation. They gather money in the form of personal income tax, corporate taxes, sales tax, capital gains tax and on and on and on. Heck, almost every dollar earned is taxed at least twice.
Corporate taxes, or inventory taxes, come from large and small businesses. Many think these taxes have no or little affect on the individual. This erroneous conclusion makes many clamor for taxes on big businesses. What they miss is that the consumer price of any product is based of the cost of goods. As taxes rise, retailers and wholesalers increase the price to purchase a product to maintain profit. So any tax on manufacturers is passed straight through to the consumer, me and you.
Now back to FREE “stuff” from the government. Logically if something is “given” to a citizen as FREE, it must first be taken from somewhere else (corporations or individuals). Let’s consider that if government has no money except that extracted from corporations or individuals, then anything offered for free is really paid for with money they extract.
Individuals and corporations earn money by producing a product or a service. To produce a product or perform a service requires labor, effort exerted by individuals many times by the sweat of their brow, but always by the allocation of their time. Their earnings are taxed by the government to gather money to pay for the FREE stuff doled out to certain other individuals.
Let’s consider FREE HEALTHCARE. First, consider who provides healthcare. Doctors, nurses, anesthesiologists, medical coders, hospital custodians, pharmacists, etc. Hospitals are built by investors or huge corporate entities. When private healthcare is needed, insurance companies pay these providers from premiums collected from policyholders. When FREE healthcare is supplied, some entity pays for these services. Insurance premiums rise to cover the expenses of FREE services.
I could go on and on with example after example and the conclusion will be the same in each and every analysis, someone pays for the FREE product or service.
FREE is a way of behind the scenes redistributing wealth, although in many cases it is not wealth being redistributed but rather hard earned money from hard working individuals.
“From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs”:
While it may sound like a great idea to those on the receiving end in “NEED”, it has been proven to have a negative impact on those with the “abilities”. Margaret Thatcher is credited with saying “Communism is a great thing until you run out of other people’s money.”
So, before falling for the old schtick of “FREE,” consider nothing is FREE. Someone somewhere sometime worked for what is being promised for FREE.
Nothing is FREE!
