I feel lately I am yelling at a fooball team losing in the last grueling minutes of a big game when I read the headlines and watch the news. Congress and Obama are in a big huddle trying to win this one and bad plays are being called.
I don't understand it all but I just want a big shout out for CAPITALISM!!!!
Monday, March 09, 2009
The record of history is absolutely crystal clear
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4 comments:
I certainly believe in capitalism. It's one of the pillars of American society along with freedom. However :)....
"Greed is good" when that rising financial tide lifts all boats. It's not so good when success comes at the expense of the people who work hard for you, let alone the public trust.
I think that continuing to rely on the would-be wisdom and benevolence of business leaders to make decisions in a wholly unfettered free market would be dangerous in these current times of publicized self-dealing in the corporate arena.
Obviously, some people are fearing that we will soon be calling each other "comrade". I doubt we'll be emulating the faux-socialist regimes of Russia and China, let alone the successful-but-criticized democracies in Canada as well as the countries of Scandanavia.
Perhaps where both worlds collide in a bad way is the American auto industry. Both top leadership as well as many in the rank-and-file labor are overpaid, in my opinion.
I think who will be caught in the middle are small business owners as well as the employees who work side-by-side with them. Ironically, those enterprises will probably face more regulatory obstacles "thanks" to the larger businesses, many of which IMO used them as a smokescreen to be able to continue their own excesses.
Benvolence of Business leaders? Businesses succeed by people buying the product or service.
Business leaders are often the scapgoat for the nations' frustration. We go nuts over Exxon making a solid profit. Well we have stocks in Exxon via our 401K so I am happy that they continued to make a profit even when gas was outrageous.
And as far as bonuses. People who sold their houses when the boom was causing them to be outrageously overpriced werent' lamenting that they were being greedy for accepting a 400% profit on their home - but they get mad at businesses that do the same.
In all of this many businesses need to be allowed to fail. But in the pursuit to save everyone from pain we are only adding to the biggest detriment Captialism faces - TAXES
OK...so glad that I really have no idea what is going on here. We get none of this living over here!
By benevolence, I meant that CEOs would instead of rewarding themselves with nine-figure bonuses via their friends in the Board of Directors (even when they're losing money) or decorating their offices with an eight-figure budget (see John Thain), they might choose to share the profits with the rank-and-file employees or even to stockholders in bigger dividends.
I agree that the housing boom was ridiculous. That's why I didn't participate in it. :)
I also agree that some businesses should fail. Citibank, AIG, etc. should be broken up and their assets bought out by smaller, financially solvent banks. Someone said that the Big Three auto companies should be consolidated to two. I would support that; but then again, I don't live in Michigan.
Looking forward at your "rant" post, by not wanting government to be part of the solution, it sounds like that you would prefer businesses to continue to make their decisions without any more federal intervention. I still disagree... but I still luvs ya! :)
And Ryann, I wouldn't be so sure. I just heard today that the UK government bailed out Lloyds.
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