Capitalists Capitalize On Capital...What a Concept

I majored in economics and now have a BA from the University of Colorado. One of my favorite econ jokes in college asks why god created economists; to make weather forecasters look good. The truth hurts but it’s often funny.

If you get any two economists to answer a question, inevitably you will get at least three answers. Economics is very much like psychology. Answers to the problems are more opinions than anything else. I guess that’s why they call it a Bachelor of Arts. Economics is an Art, not a Science.

Economists often deal with the problem of allocating resources. Economists see resources as scarce. I don’t see where the scarcity is. We have enough land in this country to build more than enough houses for everyone to live. There is more than enough food in this country for all three hundred million of us to eat well. Beyond a home and food, everything else is a luxury. Do you think they mean there is a scarcity of luxuries?

There is a scarcity of money. There is not enough money to go around for many people because a very few of us have horded ridiculous amounts of money. Bill Gates, for example, has horded an incredible amount of money. If he was paid for every hour that he has been alive – he was born on October 28, 1955 – he would have to be paid $100,000 per hour to get his current wealth. That is not only ludicrous, ridiculous and absurd, it’s wrong. No one should be paid that much money for that long even if they have cured cancer, aids, and written more quality novels than Isaac Asimov. No one should have that much money, but it’s just one example of why capitalism is wrong. Capitalism believes in and promotes the accumulation of that much wealth.

There are four hundred families who have accumulated money in the billions of dollars in the United States. They are just a part of the problem. The bigger problem is the 100 million people fighting for the capitalist system to rule the land. These people include moderately wealthy folks all the way down to outright homeless people. They all believe that capitalism is the right way, the only way, because they believe freedom is intertwined with capitalism. It is not.

These people also believe there is a chance they can accumulate that kind of wealth, so they want to preserve the system just in case they do. Good luck with that. There is an infinitesimally small chance of actually accumulating a billion dollars.

To give you some perspective, if you were able to hit Powerball, and the prize was 100 million dollars, you’d still need to hit it ten times to come up with billion dollars. Actually, that would be the gross prize. You’d need to hit Powerball thirteen times if you want one billion dollars after taxes. To have Bill Gates money, you have to hit a 100 million dollar Powerball five hundred (500) times. So if Powerball was worth 100 million dollars on every drawing, you’d have to be the winner every time, twice a week, for the next five years. Can you understand these kinds of numbers, the odds and the impossibility of this occurring? Even winning the lotto’s top prize 500 times would not give you the wealth that Bill Gates has.

Essentially, three hundred million of us are allowing the 400 wealthiest families to accumulate that kind of wealth so that we can also have it if we get that lucky. What a ridiculous concept. We could all have so much more if we distributed the wealth we have now. We don’t even have to create more wealth. Just spread what we already have around to everyone. I’m not saying we should spread it evenly. I’m not a communist. But capitalism is not good for the masses. It is good for only the very few; only about 400 of us.

As to freedom and the American way, let’s not confuse capitalism with democracy. Capitalism is an economic system. Capitalism is a way to divide all the stuff we have among the people we have. Democracy is a form of government. It is a way of putting people in charge of the collective goods of our society.

You can have a capitalistic democracy. You can also have a communistic democracy or a socialistic democracy. Democracy makes sure that everyone has the ability to be heard, to vote and have an equal voice in the society’s decisions. Capitalism is simply an economic system in which the rich have an advantage. If you don’t think so, give me a hundred million dollars and I’ll get a person with an IQ of 80 accepted to Yale. The United States is more of a Plutocracy than it is a Democracy.

History books like to say this country was founded on democratic principles. Hardy har har! Tell that to 750,000 blacks who lived in America when it was founded; or to the two million women who lived in this country when it was founded; or the estimated 10 to 15 million Native Americans who lived in this country when it was founded, not to mention they were here first by hundreds of years. I guess seniority didn’t count back then; maybe the Indians should’ve unionized.

Our founders were a group of upper class white male Europeans who believed in democracy as long as you weren’t a woman, or black, or Native American. Our forefathers controlled our county, the United States, with approximately 1.2 million other white males while the entire population of the land was about 15 million adult people. That’s the democracy the country was founded under. If that’s real democracy, I can be the next Mr. Universe.

The democracy in this country has improved over the centuries. Blacks grudgingly gained their freedom, then the right to vote. Jim Crow is not dead but he is living under a different name. Maybe, if Newt Gingrich becomes President, black children can have more janitor jobs to learn the value of working. Good old Newt; always thinking of the poor and disadvantaged and ways he can take advantage of their situation.

It has also gotten better for women over the centuries. White guys got real magnanimous, giving the gals the right to vote a mere century and a half after the founding of this country. Some day women will even have the glass ceiling removed from their careers which most males don’t even know exists; but probably not during my lifetime.

Alas, it’ll never go back to the way it was for the Native Americans. The United States has eliminated their culture entirely. We spent the 19^th Century breaking enough treaties to push them off the continent completely. The last the Native American culture was seen was in the movies.

Is capitalism really an economic system of fairness? Is it fair that the 400 richest families in the United States have the total wealth of the bottom 150 million Americans? That is the America we live in today. Four hundred families have the same wealth as half of the population of the country. I would never expect that to be possible in an economic system of fairness.

We need the tax system to be incremental. As a person accumulates wealth, more taxes should be collected. Is that fair? I say yes and have no problem with the tax rate being 90% at some point. If you’ve got a billion dollars, I want the government to get 90 cents of every dollar you earn beyond that. If a billion dollars isn’t going to keep you satisfied, you may be insatiable.

My party, the Republicans, came up with trickledown economics. When they said trickledown, they really meant trickledown! However, that is the exact opposite of what is good for the masses. I don’t say everyone should get paid the same. I do say that everyone should have a job that wants one. If there is not a job for everyone, the jobless should be supported by the government. If all the poorest folks in this country have money, they will spend it. They will be buying necessities such as food, drinks and housing. Then better jobs will be created so that people can get the luxuries they want since their bellies are already full. The more luxuries people have, the more they will want. Then the capital will trickleup to the business owners. Trickleup economics would work for the masses but it will never be allowed by the rich. They have the power to prevent such a system; just ask any lobbyist.

The only way a person can accumulate a billion dollars is to either under pay your employees or overcharged your customers. With a billion dollars of accumulated wealth, you would have probably had to do both things. Is that fair?

I suppose I could go on all day about what I think about money and how it should be used. Suffice it to say I believe that people who have vast amounts of wealth should use most of that wealth to pay back the country that made it possible for them to accumulate the wealth. If the money went back to the people, then no one would need to pay when they got sick. No one would need to pay for education. No one would have to be homeless. The roads could be paved, the police could be well paid and teachers would be more respected and wealthier. The total happiness of the country would increase because people would no longer have to worry about their next meal or simple warmth.

We have the money to do these things. It’s really all a matter of who we trust – or elect – to be in charge of the distribution of our money. Do we need the rich to get richer or do we need the rich to share more? I know which side I’m rooting for, but I’m not holding my breath waiting for it to happen. That’s the shame of capitalism.