The Professor who failed his entire class
- Fictional account to illustrate a deeper truth
An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.
That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that if enacted, no one would be poor and no one would be rich. It would be a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan.”
The Professor decided that all grades would be averaged together and everyone would receive the same grade. No one would fail, but no one would receive an A either.
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone received a B.
The students who studied hard were upset, but the students who studied little were happy.
As a result of the averaged grade, both the students who studied hard as well as the students who studied little decided to study even less for the second exam.
The average score this time was a D and no one was happy.
When the 3rd exam rolled around, the average score was an F.
The scores never increased and students blamed each other for the overall poor performance of the class. No one wanted to study hard for the benefit of another student.
To their great surprise, all students failed the course. The professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when the government takes all of the reward away, no one will try hard or want to succeed.
Posted: July 20th, 2009 under Economics, stories.
Comments: (4) | Print This Post
Although a fictional story, everyone who has ever been to a school where real grades are actually earned KNOWS that it rings true. Human nature is what it is, and is not going to change just because some utopians wish it were possible. A brilliant analogy that deserves very broad distribution. I see the same principle at work constantly when guests come to stay here. Couples or families renting our guest cottage have some skin in the game (in the form of a cleaning/security deposit). Generally they leave the cottage reasonably neat and clean prior to their departure. However, groups of unrelated individuals, at least when no one person is putting up this same deposit, almost unfailingly demonstrate very little if any care with regard to how they leave the accommodation. Its the same operative principle at work. Thank you.
Oh please! If the analogy is true you are missing a glaring falsehood in the message. President Obama is not a socialist and is not suggesting that the american public shoud be either.
It is not bad to want people that cannot afford the skyrocketing cost of health care to be able to have medical care. It is a good thing. We live in the most prospercous country in the world. Why should people that are poor (an there are a lot of them thanks to the economy collapsing from failed policies of the Bush administration)not have health care? That is not socialism that is decency.
Also, taxing the millionaires/billionairss that pay the lowest percentage of taxes on their income is a good thing.
It is much easier to take advantage of tax loopholes when you have the write-offs that these people have. Why should they not pay their share? Warren Buffet agrees, is he a socialist? If so he is richest one of all.
Fox news is not “news” it is a republican propaganda shop and its viewers are consistently fed misimformation. It is a fact that fox news viewers are the most misinformed of all “news” viewers. Socialism is just another word fox uses to confuse and promote fear of the current administration. What I fear is the elected individuals in congress rignt now that were elected to help our struggling economy and help get americans back to work. But use bipartisonism as an excuse to block the jobs act and are trying to put a big oil business pipeline’s business in with the income tax cut bill that is on the floor as we speak.
Wake up America, we are being held ransomn by big business! Vote out the congress that has tried to block everything we need to do make this country great again. If you dont make millions of dollars you have no business voting republican. They are just serving big business interest and hiding behind words like socialism to get what they want.
Dont be fooled! Dont beleive a think Fox “news” tells you.
Thank you!
You really need to educate yourself on politics before you post. Please do research on your beloved Dumbacrats and their socialist views. Maybe you should stop watching MSNBC since it is propaganda for the Dumbacrats. Keep believing in the “Change” Obama preached about. Because change is what you will have left in your pockets. I will help you get started on who to blame for the housing mess. Start with doing a little homework and research Kennedy when he wanted everyone to own a home. Good luck in life with all the handouts you want and feel you deserve. I’m heading off to work for my family so we can take luxery vacations and enjoy the good life with our kids.
There are healthcare programs for people who cannot afford it, it’s called Medicare and Medicad, the health department, and plenty of free clinics. What a healthcare overhaul is going to do is make it more expensive for me to purchase the healthcare through my work & what I will be paying for will be a joke, Generalizing healthcare will take away from specialty hospitals like St, Judes, Cancer Center of America, etc. It will be the SAME for everyone, so you want radiation to treat your cancer, nope chemo is all we have. That is what will happen. We think on the outside it is all great, yay everyone gets health care but wonder why Canadians or other socialist country come to the US for treatments.
And about the taz cuts. If anything there should be a flat tex. Equal for everyone, that’s what our country is built on. But taxing wealthy individuals an arm & a leg will not produce revenue; if anything it will stunt our economy even more so because they do not have the money to put into it like they used to.
Do some research, get all the facts. Yes, handouts are some times needed but they need to be regulated. Either way if things keep going like they are going, expect no middle class. Only the rich and the poor – that is handouts will do to this country.