Bernie Sanders: We don't need 23 deodorant choices when children are hungry

Just as an exercise in curiosity, I'm going to try to think like a socialist. And since I really have no earthly idea how socialists come up with the ideas they embrace, I'm going to let Bernie Sanders get me rolling. Tell me, Bernie, your thoughts on economic growth:

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The whole size of the economy and the GDP doesn't matter if people continue to work longer hours for low wages and you have 45 million people living in poverty. You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems. All right? 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. I don't think the media appreciates the kind of stress that ordinary Americans are working on. People scared to death about what happens tomorrow.

So let me see if I have this straight: Children are hungry, and hungry people need food, but there isn't enough food for them because, instead of producing food, 23 different companies are making spray deodorant, and 18 different companies are making sneakers. Why, they could be producing food! Solution: Limit everyone's choices when it comes to deodorant and sneakers (and presumably everything else), then take those producers who would have made the additional choices that we don't really need, and have them make food! And who exactly will make all this happen? The governnment, of course! That's why we have government, to make sure no one makes stuff we already have enough of, and instead makes things the government thinks we need. OK . . . I can't keep this up anymore.

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It's actually astonishing to me that someone who has lived on this Earth as long as Bernie Sanders has doesn't understand this. No one is starving because too many people are making things that he thinks we already have enough of. Competition breeds lots of good things, including price competitiveness, better quality and more consumer choice. Oh, and if kids are starving, someone who is responsible for feeding them needs a job. Those 23 deodorant manufacturers and 18 sneaker-makers surely employee an awful lot of people - although I suspect not many who vote for Bernie Sanders for anything. By the way, there's plenty of food in this country. The amount we throw out is obscene. If kids are hungry, it's because those who should be taking care of them don't know how to get access to it, or don't maintain the good habits that allow them to continue accessing it on a regular basis. And even then, the kids wouldn't be hungry if their guardians knew how to take advantage of the many soup kitchens and food pantries that serve every community in this country (not to mention food stamps, which are easy to get if you need them). Now you might say, well sure, Bernie Sanders is a socialist. He's way out there. And yes he is. But you know what? Your average left-winger agrees with this stuff and thinks Sanders is a genius. The people who elected Obama and are still glad they did think Bernie Sanders's ruminations on hunger and deodorant make perfect sense. That's why it matters what Sanders says. He speaks for millions who are just as ignorant as he is.

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