Socialism For Dummies

Lots of people like to get all fancy-ass intellectual about definitions of words and phrases. Those people are always wrong. Remember, intellectual spelled backwards is lautcelletni - don't sound so smart now, do it!? Bottom line is instead of putting words in people's mouths listen to what they be saying.

Socialism to the widest swath of good people means this: "Taking hard earned money out of my pocket and giving it to someone who ain't deserving of it."

No wonder it's such a hot button word! This definition is then naturally compared to our pure religion of capitalism where "everyone pulls his weight". It's all about people being responsible you see. Yessir, there's nothing capitalists love more than responsibility! Right?

For the sake of argument, let's say all these things are TRUE! We can't let loafers and thieves take all our money, can we? Why, anyone caught doing that would be strung up and hung out to dry in a heartbeat in this honest, hard-working country of ours. You socialists better not show your face in these parts, no sir!

Easy to tell who the good guys are in an

honest society: they got all the money!

Then I got all confused by my God-fearing, capitalism-loving, advocates of personal responsibility when I read this headline right on the front page of the morning paper:

Rise of commodity speculators helps fuel soaring cotton prices

Now, every good capitalist I know swears up and down and six times to Sunday that the free market is the only way to go! The free market is God talking, they says. Hell, who am I to doubt God?? See, when people want stuff real bad in the free markets prices go up and when folks don't want it so bad no more prices go down. That's what all them smart folks call natural fairness.

But this here article says something different going on!

Pension funds and Wall Street banks are pouring money into futures for cotton, oil, natural gas, wheat, coffee and other commodities. Such financial speculation, weather and demand helped drive the price of cotton to a record $2.17 a pound March 7.

Before peaking, cotton prices rose by more than 140 percent in less than 18 months.

Some analysts say this speculative money from investors who will never take delivery of cotton is distorting the futures market, driving up cotton prices and thus raising prices for apparel retailers and consumers.

My capitalist friends say, "Give them food now
and they'll be wanting handouts for life!"

Don't know about you but that sounds like socialism to me! Them lazy-ass investors taking money right out of the wallets of every decent man, woman and child in this country! You can't just make prices be what you want them to be just to suit your own selfish interests, no sir! You gotta think of the greater good!

Just how did these deadbeats and parasites get a foothold in the Greatest System On The Face Of The Earth? I don't understand it! How could anyone even dare when they just got to know the minute a righteous American hears about this their sorry ass is toast!

A McClatchy investigation found that an increase in cotton prices has corresponded with the changing composition of the futures market, where speculators hold more contracts than do growers, producers, buyers and users of commodities.

"What happens is the markets become unreliable and therefore unusable" for growers and buyers, said Commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Bart Chilton, whose agency regulates commodity futures. "It's the same thing with cotton, same in energy. If you look at the volatility in the markets, there are not many of them that have sort of been stable."

Sifting through commission data, McClatchy found that total outstanding futures contracts grew by about 80 percent from 1990 to 2010. That's big growth in such markets.

Moreover, the number of contracts doubled between 2004 and 2010. This parallels the time when institutional investors began to play seriously in commodity markets, aided by popular commodity indexes developed by the Goldman Sachs investment bank and the disgraced financial giant American International Group.

Lord-a-mighty! They been doing it for years! Those scoundrels! Good thing those McClatchy folks dug up these cockroaches so we all can bring them to justice. We'll execute them Texas style! Hard labor for life - that'll show 'em for trying to get out of work! Let's see how they like them apples!

I know this stuff may sound harsh to you folks, but trust me, it's the only thing these kind of people can understand! People getting hurt out there and us God-fearing Americans are gonna do something about it!

The huge increase in the price of cotton is also hurting manufacturers. Ralph Lauren and Levi Strauss say profits have dropped because they can't pass along cotton prices to consumers in this economy.

Speculators are resisting change.

Late Friday, two huge financial industry groups sued the commodity commission to halt proposed limits on how many futures contracts speculators can hold.

What are them boys thinking? They gonna sue to stay on their lazy asses doing nothing 'cept taking other people's money? Oh boy, they got an education coming their way! This is the land of hard work and pulling yourself up by the boot straps! No free rides here, sonny boy.

I almost feel sorry for those fools when they find out we's honest folk in this country, not a nation of selfish crooks and thieves thinking only about themselves where bad people can get away with anything.