Tag Archives: capitalism

Destroying our economy is not a crime

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(Written in 2010, two years after that recession.  Nonetheless, as I review, still true today.)

So, the latest word is that, after two years, only two people are being prosecuted for destroying our economy.  It seems the loss of trillions of dollars and millions of jobs isn’t actually a crime.

Of course, this is not surprising.  Too many in Congress and too many in business are dirty.  Too many would go down if any real investigations took place.

Case in point: Barney Frank.  You may have seen him on TV, chairing a committee in Congress, boiling with outrage at Wall Street and financial big shots.  The real story is that he had as much to do with the sub-prime fiasco as anyone.  He even got paid for it.  Many tens of thousands of dollars.  Moreover, his boyfriend at the time worked at Fannie Mae. (Do your own google on Frank and Fannie Mae.)  Regardless of the consequences for the rest of us, these criminals were only interested in their immediate profit and pleasure.  This is typical of criminal society–massive irresponsibility for the results of their actions.  Which leads to an interesting question:  What is homosexuality but irresponsibility toward the fate of the race?  I spent some time on the streets when I was young, and avoiding the homosexual traps was just part of the life.  Not everyone made it, but those are stories for another time.

The worse truth is that this behavior is typical of all criminal groups, including Congress.  Each criminal offers the deal of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”  Frank is hardly alone.  Millions of dollars from banking and insurance firms, who were selling thin air, went to politicians still in office, including now President Obama.  Democrats and Republicans alike are neck deep in the mire.

Sadly, being criminals, these individuals and groups support other criminals.  This is a fact often missed.  The idea that a person or company can be a criminal in one area and a responsible citizen in another is a fantasy.  The heart of criminality is irresponsibility.  Any criminal will tell you, in whatever creative words they can find, that their crimes were forced on them, didn’t hurt anyone, were caused by the victim, and so on.

This sort of thing does not have a boundary in a person’s life.  It spills over and spreads.  There is no choice.  If it’s okay to beat the wife, it must be okay for someone else to beat the wife–or the kids.  It must be okay to drink the grocery money up since that is the way to stay away from the wife.  Therefore it must be okay to be drunk on the job or lose the job.  Just extend this in any way you like.  Crime bosses are not great fathers except in the movies.

Companies are the same.  Just look at the groups that Fannie Mae supported–and perhaps still does.  Once the corruption reaches the top, companies will find a way to support other crimes and criminals.  On the flip side, very often the companies that preach the most about responsibility are doing the most irresponsible things.  Irresponsibility is something they know well, and the only way they can avoid the pain of self-inspection is to point the finger elsewhere.

Of course, this also applies to politicians.  If you think about it, for what other reason has our system of legalized bribery, otherwise known as campaign contributions, continued to exist in our so-called free elections?  Companies with criminal activities, by which I definitely include areas of irresponsibility, support politicians who will look the other way.

Almost any politician, to be elected, is under terrific pressure to take part in this crime.  The cost is self-respect.  The result is irresponsibility.  The need for the money does not go away.  There is always that next election.  Some company or person with filth to hide or legalize will have a “contribution” to make.  All that’s required is that the politician be just a bit more irresponsible.

Thus crime spreads through all of society.

There is a great deal to be said on how loss of self-respect leads to irresponsibility and crime.  Many areas of our society are bubbling pools of irresponsibility–and the irresponsible encourage more of it.  They preach behaviors that lead to loss of self-respect, knowing full well this leads to criminality.  It is, after all, the path they have walked.

Most of these areas don’t get labeled as criminal.

But they should.

Ways to steal from the kids

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There are lots of ways to steal from the children.

Speaking with a friend of mine, we got on the subject of social security, welfare, unbridled handouts and so on.

He was angry.

I didn’t disagree with him.  I still don’t.  People want and politicians want–they make deals to satisfy each other by taking a loan out in their children’s name.

Sleazy, dirty, dishonest, corrupt, foul–all are good adjectives.  And accurate.

But then he went on to say that we ought to be drilling oil wherever we can find it.  The North Slope.  Wilderness areas.  The Gulf.  Wherever.

“Do you think,” I asked him, “that maybe our children, our grandchildren and their children might want to have some oil?  Do you think they might find that handy?  Do you think they might possibly need a few gallons to ensure their own survival?’

He blinked, blinked just as if I’d tapped him between the eyes with a hammer.

And he didn’t answer.  For good reason.

He had no answer.  So far as I know, he still doesn’t.

Everyone likes to think that their variety of handout is the good kind.

It isn’t just the socialists who are stealing from the kids.

It is the handiest way for a politician to win some votes–and it doesn’t matter what side of the political spectrum that the politician is on.  The average politician reaches out into the future and takes a finger or a lung–or a job, or the oil, or the air to breathe–or their educations and the right to their own minds, from the children.

Next time you shake hands with a politician, remember to wash.

And if he gives you something, at least say a prayer for those who will pay.

Socialism and capitalism-the two philosophies compared

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Socialism and capitalism–the two philosophies couldn’t be more apart. At least, that’s the common refrain.

But it isn’t so. Not really.

Truth is, as they are practiced, at their core, they are nearly identical.

Each promises that someone else will do the work.

They both have immense bodies of propaganda designed to convince those who produce that the greater part of the wealth created by the producer’s production actually belongs to someone else.

Both deny that they are bound by the laws of exchange. Those same principles that say when I go to the grocery store, I leave behind something of value equal to what I receive. Yet both capitalists and communists espouse systems whereby someone gets but is no longer required to give.

The biggest difference is not philosophy, but numbers. How many not working will be supported by those who bust their butts?

There’s the difference.

The modern capitalist does a better job of hiding the lack of exchange than does the socialist, but that is necessary. The socialist, when successful, has enlisted large portions of the population–and there is a great power in those numbers.

The capitalist–not such big numbers. To compensate, the capitalist starts out by entering into exchange, giving an investment for a share. But as quickly as possible, that share becomes complete control and lasts forever.

I’ve written before about the reality of a company–it consists primarily of the knowledge and production of those doing the work. Though it’s not an even division, some know more and produce more, some know and do less, there is still a proportionate share of ownership created each and every day, created and maintained by that good, knowledgeable production.

Nothing folds up a company faster than having all those involved with production, along with all the knowledge of production, walk away.

What is the value of a share of nothing?

What is the value of a share of a company that consists of hardware, buildings and such, but has no one left who knows what goes on in those buildings? Well, what will the buildings and stuff bring at auction? It’s not even a company. Just some stuff that might be valuable to those with the knowledge to use it to make another company.

Yet the modern capitalist will claim that because of money lent years ago, or centuries ago, that the “company” belongs to the capitalist. If great-great grandpa put a hundred bucks into ATT, great-great grandson doesn’t need to produce anything. He gets to siphon the profit and wealth from those doing the work.

Siphon the profit and wealth. Does that remind you of something?

It ought to. That is the driver behind socialism, communism, feudalism and monarchies, and is also key to such simpleminded political structures as dictatorships and totalitarian states.  Somebody wants a free ride and those of us creating products get to do the heavy lifting.

Socialism, having numbers on its side, doesn’t bother with any initial investment. You work, we take. Thank you very much. We’ll be back tomorrow for your next “contribution.”

Capitalism says, you work, we take–because there was at one point a contribution made to help enable the production. Where this morph’s over into a “you give, we take” scheme, is when time is entered into the equation.

If I give you a hundred bucks so that you can buy tools to make doodads, then I should get something in return. Absolutely–that is simple and fair exchange.

But do I own the company years later when you’re producing millions of doodads and selling them for a bundle? Is all that profit mine for my hundred buck investment? Your years of work, your reinvestment into goods and equipment, your accumulation of knowledge, your daily creation–but my hundred bucks?

At some point, the exchange created by the initial investment has been made trivial by the investments of time, effort, knowledge and production of those doing the work. How does one know that such a condition exists? Just have the knowledge and production fail to show up on Monday.

It’s like Vito saying, “Keep the money. But you owe me ‘favors’ for the rest of your life. And then your kids owe me favors. And their kids owe me too. And the kids after that right on out to the end of time.”

An investment should be paid back, and an obligation exists until it is. But dollars of investment can’t create eternal obligation. Eternal obligation–that’s slavery.

That’s something for nothing.

So you see, at their hearts, as they are practiced, socialism and capitalism are blood brothers.

The real difference is:  How many we have to carry on our backs.

The real question is:  How does your back feel?

Speaking of capitalism–what is a founder’s share?

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Speaking of capitalism, what about the situation where someone founds a company? Doesn’t just make an investment, but rolls up his sleeves and dives in?

Who owns that company?

Is the founder by rights an absolute dictator, sole heir to all profit and benefit?

No, not quite.

Ownership is still measured by contribution.

Let’s say that after years of work, hard work by everyone including the founder, that everyone but the founder walks away. It’s a mess, but the founder can create another company, right? If he’s been in there swinging, he’s got the knowledge–most of it, anyway. He can hire new people, train them, get things rolling again–but at how much effort, at how much lost profit, production, and customers?

That extra, the part that disappears with the people, is the least of what the former “employees” owned. The “owner” only owns what is left. That may be more. It may be less. It depends on the real contribution, on the amount of creation. But ownership of this thing called a company is shared.

How do we know that?

Because it went away when those creating it left.

So, even a sole founder is not so sole.

Very quickly ownership spreads out.

And it’s easy to understand.

After all, the creation of a company is the sum of many, many individual acts of creation. Most, nearly all, of those acts must be replayed every day to keep the company created. When a company is rebuilt, it’s a new company, created newly by new actions and new efforts.

What a founder does is enlist the creation of others–but he can never own their ability to create. That is unless one subscribes to slavery. That’s what slaveholders try to do–own someone’s ability to create, own all that someone does create.

Even then, it doesn’t last. Eventually the system collapses–slaves have very little stake in success.

Neither do employees who are denied their rights to ownership, denied the recognition and exchange demanded by their individual acts of creation.

Such companies eventually die.

That’s because the life leaves them.

It simply walks out the door.

Jobs overseas and parasites at home

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IBM was in the news recently for laying off more Americans and hiring more electronic migrants. Some writer pontificated that the workers had no right to complain.

They were just employees.

Such drivel, this idea that IBM owes the workers nothing. What IBM executives think they own, what the shareholders think they own, and what they actually own are two very different things.

It is very easy to calculate. Consider, tomorrow morning, no one employed by IBM, no one more than a few levels below vice-presidents, shows up for work? What happens the next day? Or the days after that?

What’s left? Aside from computer rooms, network cables, empty factories and panicked clients? Whatever it is, it’s worth only a small fraction of the current share price.

That’s not what Wall Street wants to hear. It’s not what the IBM board wants to hear. And it’s not what the executives at IBM want to hear.

But there it is. Take away the “employees” and the company ceases to exist.

A company is not a thing like a kitchen chair or a lawn ornament. The greatest part of most enterprises is intangible. It is the skills, the knowledge, the drive, the production, the creation, and the work. That intangible wholly owned by those disdainfully known as employees.

That label hides a truth, for they are not employees nor even workers, but producers. Even better, creators. They create the company and do it each day by walking in the door and bringing the company to life.

So I ask again: What is left if the producers leave IBM? If the producers don’t producer? If the creators don’t create? If they walk away?

A corpse. That’s what you call a body when the life is gone. And then you bury the thing.

A century ago, Carnegie and his ilk fought a war to deprive those who create from the rewards of their creation. Unfortunately, Carnegie won. Modern capitalism was born. Carnegie’s minions wrote the history books. His cultural descendants keep the lie alive.

Perhaps it was inevitable. The monarchies had fallen. Slavery was out of fashion. And the world had room for only so many warlords. The inveterate parasites had to find another way to feed. The key for all of them is, and always has been, to find a way to take from those who create and give to those who, well, don’t create.

Does that seem harsh? Perhaps. But there remain these questions:

What is a company?

And if it disappears when the producers stop and the creators cease, then how can someone else possibly own it?