…after reading this commentary by Paul Jacob (pasted in below) you still think that the reason why people are hungary is because we have too many brands of deodorant and that Bernie Sanders knows something about economics.
Raise your hand, dry and secure
Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders made a splash last week with an off-the-cuff comment. “You don’t necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country.”
The candidate whose initials are “B. S.” doesn’t call himself a Socialist for nothing.
The Democratic-caucusing “Independent” Senator from Vermont was expressing a tired old sentiment. See his error? (Raise your hand if you know.)
To make any connection between “feeding the hungry” and cutting back on competitive products one would have to believe there is a fixed stock of wealth, and that we waste it on different brands and whole varieties of antiperspirants and sports shoes.
But there is no such fixed supply.
Supplies are concocted to meet consumer values, wants, and getting rid of competitive products means that some values are not being met . . . and that some folks are not being employed at the rates they could be with more diversity of commodities.
The best way to “feed the hungry” is for the hungry to feed themselves, by being productive — if children, then being fed by productive parents. And to do that, folks need to find their market niche. Which might very well entail another deodorant or shoe.
There is a realm where one person gains at the expense of someone else: redistributive government. If Sen. Sanders wants government to give more money to feed hungry people, he should consider cutting back on some other government expenditure.
Why didn’t B. S. suggest that? Perhaps more than feeding the hungry, he’s interested in feeding government, and his own pride in his own b.s. ideology.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
