I think we all know the story of how the industrious ants worked all summer long storing food for the winter while the grasshoppers ate everything in sight and made no provisions for the future.

Sound familiar? Like the European economy? Like Greece? Like our economy?

Winter is coming and the ants are doing their best, but the grasshoppers are eating the food faster than the ants can produce.

In Financial Land that is called a deficit. The way our grasshoppers are being fed is with more and higher taxes. We give our grasshoppers free housing, food, free health care and all the amenities the ants have to work for including cars, color TVs and just about anything they ask for. And it is never enough.

Our poorest grasshoppers are considered rich by the poor in other parts of the world. And why?

Their free market system is kept in chains by the rulers.

The reason the USA has become the world leader and the place every person in the world aspires to come is because of the capitalistic system, the free market. All of history has shown that when people are allowed to keep the fruits of their own labor they all prosper.

During the Stalin days where central planning proved to be a failure the tiny plots of the peasants produced more food than government farms. When the government gets out of the way the entire economy grows and prospers.

One by one we are seeing the European countries that have confiscated the incomes of their successful entrepreneurs (ants) go deeper and deeper into debt because they are producing more grasshoppers than ants. Ultimately the grasshoppers will have eaten everything.

We can feed more grasshoppers if we can have more ants working, but there are few jobs now for the ants. The Big Central Planner says borrow more money and make new jobs. Build bridges. Fix sewer pipes. Problem is those out- of-work ants have not done any work like that. They are all pencil pushers and computer nerds; they have never worked with their hands. Make them do work says the Big Central Planner. So they train them for jobs that aren’t there.

Doing something, whatever that is, may not produce anything. The money goes to waste as no permanent job is created. It is called priming the well. Getting something started. Trouble is, it is a dry well.

Now we have a catastrophe. The grasshoppers are eating the ants. They are pouring tax syrup on them that slows their productivity. At some point they stop producing. The ants leave the country to find a place where there are fewer grasshoppers.

Grasshoppers have only themselves left to eat.

Al Thomas' book, "If It Doesn't Go Up, Don't Buy It!" has helped thousands of people make money and keep their profits with his simple 2-step method. Read the first chapter at http://www.mutualfundmagic.com and discover why he's the man that Wall Street does not want you to know. Copyright 2010 Williamsburg Investment Co. All rights reserved.