Socialism - why my Dad was an American and not from Sweden

I received this story below and it reminded me what my Grandad Olson told me.  He left Sweden in 1898 at the age of 16 because the taxes in Sweden were 70% and the incentive to work hard and get ahead was gone.  Now I don't know about you but that sounds pretty bad except that the good thing was the government took care of you when you were old and when you were sick and you did not have to worry about things like retirement.  I also remember him saying that there was a high demand for potatoes because they used it to make whiskey so that is what a lot of folks did for a living.  Someday I will write more about my grandad but here is the story that reminded me of why my Dad was an American.
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An ececonomics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism". All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A. After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little. The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. Couldn't be any simpler than that.  What do you learn from the Osage? the harder you work the more lucky you get free enterprise is what made the Osage a great place people that don't live here can see how great it is or another way to say it is sometimes we cannot see the forest because of the trees - get it? Osage people appreciate and can see what is important we should be proud and humble because of what we have Thanks for your time gary@thepioneermena.com