...Well meaning people (including me) in the 60s though that if you give opportunity to the under served then they would take the opportunity to better themselves (Obama being the poster boy for this improvement). But what everyone ignored (see Lydon Johnson's Great Society) is that basic human nature will tell you that some people will trade their dignity for "free cheese" and not because they are hungry, just because they can. People game the system and when they do it takes money from all of us. What have we done (with all good intentions) to the black community? We have destroyed a couple of generations by being well intended idiots.
Originally Posted by yaddayadda
+1 by 100%
HOWEVER, some of the poor aren't the only ones who "game the system," they just happen to be an easy target and lack the means to defend themselves. While I agree with you 100% about how things went awry in this case, I also am more concerned that more people are not intensly indignant and continually harping on the abuses our system receives from the very wealthy as the spread between the few ultra-rich and what's left of the middle class continues to grow - and that has been happening by artificial, non-market methods. I can never figure out how some guy gets paid Billions of $$$ in salary, perks and golden parachutes while driving a company into the ground - especially when there are literally thousands of other guys with high skills who would do that job for 35%-40% of the compensation package. There's inefficiency and cronyism at the top just like the bottom and private, large businesses are no more efficient than "big government." I won't even go into the little banking/investment adventures of Enron and the Housing Bust - that's so obvious surely no one missed those.
There is a lot of tax money involved, albeit indirectly. There can be all kinds of news stories about how spending by the rich drives the economy, but they are really a load of b.s. The reason I say this is that if more working people made more money (or there were more people working and earning wages) while the very few at the very top made less because those under them made more, there would be more households putting that money into circulation by making purchses and, yes, paying taxes. That's not a very clear sentence, but what it means is that 20,000 employees of a company can inject $5M into the economy better than 2 or 3 of the top executives. And, heaven forbid, what would happen if all of those extra dollars in obscene over compensation were actually used within a company to pay existing employees a little more or even expand the number of jobs?
What I think the TP and others who are upset and frustrated with current affairs are missing is that they believe less action by government will magically make the causes of our current problems disappear. Yes, government has screwed the pooch at times, but so does big business. The current mess we are in is a direct result of the government not doing enough to control
questionable business practices. No one in government
really wants a bad economy - hell, that's bad for them, too. What should be contemplated and better understood is the need to elect people who will do things
for the people, not
to the people. The real work and continual heavy lifting is about having the government work, not tossing is out. But, it is infantile and ultimately not in anyone's self interest to automatically assume that a corporation is some sort of wonderful, benevolent, caring entity. Government regulations that insist on businesses treating employees fairly and requiring them not to engage in shady and ultimately self-destructive activities (which, by the way, only negatively effect the employees, not the "smartest guys in the room" who dreamed up the schemes) are not bad and neither are the ones who attempt to keep reliability and saftey in place with food and other consumer products. Do some go overboard, well YES, but that's a better trade than coming out of a restaurant, grocery store or job site sick or dead.