Re: OT: Illegal Immigration

Ed Duncan wrote:

Just another reason I am a lifelong World Socialist. CEOs with incomes
in excess of 400x that of the lowest paid worker. Death to all
corporations.

Ed Duncan, Batavia, NY


You betcha. Then we can all be equal - equally *poor*. Your vision of
things worked really well for the USSR, China, Viet Nam, Cuba, Mongolia,
and all the other Socialist Paradises.

'Been to Europe lately? Even the "Good Socialism" that you folks trumpet
in Europe is coming apart at the seams. 'See, under the Marshall Plan
the fine people of Europe did not have to pay for their own defense (for
the most part) because the US did it for the better part of 50 years.
I'm not complaining. The net result was wonderful. The Evil in Germany
was tamped down almost to nonexistence, the Soviets were held at bay and
ultimately neutralized with a minimum of violence, and Europe was
largely rebuilt better than ever.

But what did Western Europe do with the money it wasn't spending on
defense? Why it jumped right into the Socialist sewer and made all kinds
of entitlement promises to their people. The only thing is that
Socialist economic theory is entirely bogus and money doesn't respect
legislation. So now, it's time to pay the piper. Oh, wait, they *can't*.
Why? Because there is insufficient wealth to do so. Why? Because
Socialist economic theory fundamentally impedes the creation of wealth.
While Europe was busy making promises, its economic system was quietly
eroding its ability to create the wealth necessary to pay for them. But
boy, they sure showed those rich CEOs who was boss - they *regulated*
pretty much everything those Eeeeeevil Rich People wanted to do. It took
as long as it did only because there was (and is) some real patina of
democracy and market economics mixed into the Socialist goo.
Unfortunately, for most of Western Europe, over time, Socialism became
ascendant, and market-based economics became slowly regulated to the
point of being less and less effective. IOW, you "won". The results you
see in the streets of Paris should make you proud.

The creation of wealth requires: 1) A fair playing field (law) 2)
Ability and 3) Hard Work. Punishing the people who achieve it hurts the
"little guy" far more than it does the Eeeeeevvvvil Rich Guy. Say you
cap the CEOs salary at $40K per year. He/She is going to do one of two
things: 1) Move to where they can make way more money or 2) Not bother
working hard at all. But see, (and this is yet another bit of fabulous
Socialist cow flop) all people are not actually *equal*. Some people are
smarter, more driven, and just generally more fit to produce wealth than
others. So, when you clobber them, they just withdraw. 'Guess what
happens then? The very engine of wealth that could produce more for
*everyone* slows down and then stalls out completely. If you tell
Bill Gates that he can only every accumulate wealth at the rate
of $40K per year, he's probably going to take his considerable
talents elsewhere. 'Think you could have created Microsoft from
scratch and built it into what it is today? I don't, because if you
could have done something on this scale, you *would* have.

But the real problem with Socialism is moral. More to the point
Socialist theory is immoral at its core. Your comments above are case in
point. "Death to all corporations" can only come from a heart filled
with class hatred. You can't do what they do, so no one else should be
allowed to. Class hatred is nothing more or less than bigotry no
different than race hatred, religious intolerance, homophobia, or
xenophobia. It just sounds much more palatable to say that "CEOs make
too much money".

I know plenty of corporate executives at varying levels. Like all
the rest of us, they come in a variety of flavors, good, bad, honest,
coniving, brilliant, stupid and so forth. But the consistently
successful ones got that way by very hard work, very long hours,
taking very big risks, and a relentless drive to succeed. And when
they *do* succeed, their entire company - employees, stock holders,
customers, and suppliers - also prosper. Note that I am *not*
defending fraud by executives like those at Worldcom, Tycho, or
Enron. Fraud is *not* market action, it is theft and should be
swiftly and thoroughly remediated. I'm talking about the honest
production of great wealth by people like Gates, Perot, Turner,
and Trump. (To the best of my knowledge, these are people who
have not been accused of fraud in the production of their personal
wealth.)

BTW, while you're busy killing corporations, you need to do just a slight
reality check about who *owns* those corporations. A very small
percentage of publicly traded stock is owned by Eeeevvvil Rich People.
The majority of it is owned by institutional investors. You know,
the people that invest for Union pension funds, your retirement program,
the local teachers' TIAA program and so forth. IOW, the majority
of corporate stock is held by .... all of us. So start swinging that
big Socialist axe of yours - just know that you're beheading the futures
of all your friends and neighbors while you do.

Oh, and one last thing while we're busy developing our Socialist
Paradise. Eeeeevvvvill Rich People are not stupid for the most part.
They've seen the rise of the anti-market, anti-capitalist, anti-success,
and anti-wealth sentiments grow in the larger culture exactly as you and
so many others express it. 'Guess what they're doing? They're taking
their wealth *private*. Instead of new companies being brought to public
markets where we can all invest and potentially prosper, wealth is
slowly flowing back into private investment groups and many of these
new, emergent success stories will never see the light of day at the
NASDAQ, nevermind the NYSE. This means that all those institutional
investors may or may not have a chance to ride the Next Big Thing
and produce a richer retirement for all their customers.

So while you groan on about how unfair it is that Bill Gates
is smarter and richer than you or I, the *next* Bill Gates will never
have the opportunity to make literally 10s of thousands of people more
wealth. The profit will be nicely locked in a small, tightly knit group
of people. Your bleating about things has worked the exact *opposite*
way you wanted to - you've reinstituted the age of private mega-wealth.
Good on ya ...





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Tim Daneliuk tundra@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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