And the Rich Get Lazier

"The rich get rich and the poor get poorer." Many have probably heard this catchphrase, which Wikipedia attributes versions to President Andrew Jackson and President William Henry Harrison. In both cases, they were stating how government power should not be used to insure that government doesn't use its power to insure that those with wealth are made wealthier. Many people believe that this phrase was somehow popularized by communist movements, but you can see that even in the 19th century, U.S. Presidents were talking about it. The ultimate source for the phrase is from the New Testament verse Matthew 13:12 in the King James translation, so it certainly is not a new sentiment.

What I find to be apparent is that the rich get rich, then they get lazy. I'm not just talking about lazy as in physically inactive. I'm talking about mentally and fiscally lazy. It appears to me that many wealthy people are not hard working, engaged, involved, innovators, but people that want to sit on a pile of money while the rules are rigged to insure that the pile grows and the government keeps their hands off of it.

I can't count the number of times I hear business owners (or people that work for them and buy into their propaganda) bemoaning "regulations". It's as if they believe that the only purpose to regulating anything is to insure that capitalism and wealth creation is checked. The same goes for taxes. You'd think taxes were some kind of evil plot to drag down the wealthy. Regulations prevent people from focusing so much on their own greed and schemes that they can trash the environment or take advantage of others in the pursuit of their goals. I don't want to see clean water and clean air regulations rolled back so some obscenely wealthy oil executive can make 10% more than the already incomprehensible stratospheric salary that he made last year. The amount of money these people spend on baubles and trinkets is more than many people make in a year, and we're supposed to feel sorry for them because they have some kind of restriction placed on what they can do? When did the privileged become such victims? I can buy into the fact that everyone should pay the same percentage of their income into taxes. I can't believe that the average mega rich person doesn't have on their payroll or on retainer, a professional that can show him how to avoid paying the amount in taxes that the system says he should pay. I'd be surprised if the wealthiest men in America paid a higher percentage of their income in taxes than I did last year. That's purely a rant of mine, I have no proof or studies to back it up, so if someone actually did a study on it, I'd gladly eat my words.

More to the point, let's get off bitching and griping about taxes. There seems to be no reluctance by the conservatives in this country in paying taxes if the point if stomping on Iraq (check that - we're not even trying to pay for this war as it goes, we're charging it on the National Visa card). My point is that taxes provide necessary benefits. Whether it's an aircraft carrier or a smooth road to drive on, a school to educate someone or a safety net to catch those in need, these programs are part of our life and help make our standard of living so high. You can argue all you want about how the Europeans overtax their people, but the money has to come from somewhere, and whether it's funnelled through taxes or usage fees, whether it is government enforced or voluntary for individuals, we end up with the same standard of living, the same generally peaceful and prosperous society. You don't want to abandon those in the lowest strata of society, from a moral or practical standpoint, it's not sustainable.

I wrote in my last post about the manufacturer's representative business. In this business, people that have been owners of rep firms for years are some of the least motivated people in the sales force. Since hey already have enough money and they have rigged the rules to make the majority of the money in their businesses no matter who sells the most, they don't need to work that hard. That doesn't stop them from expecting high compensation for little effort. Ultimately, they allow their businesses to drift, then expect to sell it at a high and go into retirement (as if that's much different than what they did in the last several years).

I think this is a symptom of your highest class of capitalists in this country as a whole. When was the last time you saw an oil company executive offer to build a new refinery in this country? This would even out shortages caused annually by refinery operational shutdowns and maintenance outages. The oil executives have no desire to do this because it would also lead to less volatile prices and less profits. When was the last time you heard about someone in the entrenched energy industry talk about capitalizing on any new form of energy? It's stupid and short sighted. These companies have all the pipelines, the distribution network, and capital to launch new products across all markets. If they had some foresight and got in front of the energy needs of the country instead of entrenching themselves, we would be in a much better position as a nation. I'm making two arguments here: first that the people with the most market motivation aren't making a very good bet based on where we know energy industry needs and capabilities will go, and second that free market profit motives are not adequate for steering society in the right direction.

My real fear is listening to people that talk about our future as if it doesn't matter to them. I've actually heard people say, "So what if the planet melts down? I'll be long gone by then." I wonder why the uber-rich feel the way they feel about money for the same reason. At some point, don't you just have to say, "I've got enough money to last the rest of my life no matter what I do. It's time to stop pushing for more."

The Age of Stagnation

I've had vague concerns that we are living in an era where America's dominance and position are slipping in the world. I've often pointed to the current administration's unfriendly stance toward science - but it's a lot more complicated that that.

The old model that America drove to prominence saw its heyday in the 1880's - The Age of Invention. Anybody with a good idea was developing it, patenting it, manufacturing it and making a fortune off of it. Most of the ideas that made people rich also benefited society. Think of Thomas Edison's light bulb and telephone.

One thing that is often true of innovation is that it displaces something that came before it. Many times the success of a new product meant the death of an old one. The maturation and solidification of our technologies into tried and true solutions is, in itself, a way to stifle innovation. Often those who have maneuvered themselves into a position to benefit from the way things are done now find it in their own selfish interest to suppress anything that threatens their dominance and source of income.

Many people have speculated that auto and oil companies conspired to keep fuel efficient engine designs off the market by buying ideas and sitting on them. I've never seen any proof for this, but it has been true that auto companies have resisted fuel standards for years. If it was a conspiracy - it was a suicidal conspiracy of fools. Ask your local car dealer how business is right now.

That's not exactly what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how someone without, someone in want, someone that lacks - will naturally strive much harder than someone that has all of their basic needs met.

I fear that in the environment we've built up in this country, using good ideas is more like playing musical chairs. When the music stops, you have to be sitting in a chair so someone else will be left out. Today's capitalists believe that you're not going to be rewarded for making the most out of any invention or development, but that the key is to get a patent for an idea or process and sit on it. Milking the most wealth possible out of an idea has become such an American past time that we graduate lawyers from universities just to specialize in patent law. The problem with this way of thinking is that ideas don't work best by bottling them up and placing them on a shelf, ideas work best in action. Ideas in action will necessarily be challenged and displaced by other ideas and forced to compete for prominence. These same capitalists that always trot out the excuse that "market forces" have to dominate any situation don't have the same standard when it comes to their ideas compete on an even footing. The desire to stifle other's ideas is not new. Even back during the Age of Invention, Edison tried to stop one of his brightest proteges, Nicolai Tesla, from developing an idea that would have displaced one of his biggest inventions, alternating current. And the Wright brothers tried to get a patent on flight and stifle all others that tried to make inventions or modifications to the airplane. Fortunately, they lost their battle with Curtis, and we now use flaps on wings instead of having large wings that warp and flex like a bird's wing - a construction that would have been extremely impractical on scale-up.

In the manufacturer's representative business - you always know who are the "mature" salesmen. Someone that has been successful for many years has usually gotten fat and lazy. They already have enough money. They don't want or need to work hard any more - but they still expect to be handsomely rewarded by virtue of their position. This is what I fear the capitalistic class in this country have become.

One thing is certain, expecting to continue to do things the way we have always is a formula for being left behind. In the Age of Invention, the first invention brought in money to fuel the development of the next thing. In our Age of Stagnation, coming up with a good idea once, or having the keys to the castle that contains the thing everyone wants is all it takes to be entitled to an uninterrupted stream of wealth. If that sounds like a fairy tale, it is.

Big Oil's Illogical Stance

News of the latest record profits by Exxon are stunning. They broke their previous record, which was also an all time record of the biggest profit of any company in the world. They made $1,300 a second in profit. We looked up the per capita & per employee profits, which dwarf the "economic incentive" tax refund we are about to get this year. What corporate policies lead to such extreme profits? Is there a direct correlation with the secret energy task force put together by Vice President Dick Cheney in the early days of the Bush administration and the resulting deregulation surge of uncontrolled lopsided capitalism?

I listen to the talking points of the Republican Party & Far Right, courtesy their effective brainwashing of the gullible masses. I have plenty of friends, acquaintances, and associates who dutifully repeat these pearls of wisdom sent down by their corporate overlords. One of my favorites is "The LIBERALS (use your own degree of degradation and scorn here) won't let us drill for oil of the coast". Never mind disastrous oil spills and the fact that oil won't last forever, and the fact that we are polluting our planet to death - all of our problems would be solved instantly by more drilling. This would already be happening except for the fact that crazy liberals, who have nothing better to do but plot the destruction of America, have insidiously inserted OVERREGULATION into the mix in order to thwart those civic minded saints at the oil companies, who just want to be allowed to help us all, out of the goodness of their hearts.

This ignores the fact that Republicans were in charge of both houses of congress and the presidency during the time when gas was soaring over $3 a gallon and this phony argument was most often heard. It also ignores that often restrictions to oil drilling are put on the ballot and supported by popular votes. I seem to remember that they found "the biggest oil reserve ever" under the seabed off of Louisiana. This is the one place where they can and do drill without any restrictions, so I've never understood the logic behind this complaint.

Then Katrina hit, and gasoline prices surged again, and we were told that the problem was that we don't have enough refining capability. Yet, curiously, you don't hear the Oil Industry lobbying to make more refineries. If you ask about this, the response is that there is too much regulation and it's almost impossible to make more refineries. The complaint of overregulation doesn't stop the industry from lobbying to drill for more oil, only to refine it. And why is this? This is because a bottleneck of refining capability is what drives the price up.

Wake up, America. We were sold out on this one.

Cooperation Makes Strength

Evolution has rewarded those that can out compete. Capitalism rewards those that can out compete at the expense of others. I have the vague sense that capitalism has some fatal flaws that will eventually drag democracy down the rathole.

I have great admiration for Benjamin Franklin. The guy was always curious, always questioning, and always sharing his knowledge. He's responsible for many of the concepts of cooperative civil society in America. Public Libraries and Fire Stations are just 2 of many things he came up with. He was the most renowned scientist in America in the mid 18th century, due to his work on electricity. He freely published the plans for building protection with lightning rods in order to help the greatest number of people. There's no patent for the lightning rod, Franklin did not profit monetarily from the sale of them. He also came up with the Franklin stove, and was encouraged to patent it. He refused, saying that ideas freely shared can be freely improved upon. He saw patents as a detriment to innovation. After all, how can you own knowledge? It's not as if a Franklin Stove could not have happened without Franklin, someone would have come up with it. Franklin's coin was the ability to see a need, study the concepts involved and come up with a useful idea.

So, am I a communist? Well, to be fair, the world has never seen true communism. It never got a clear and fair chance in its pure form. It was always used as a justification for totalitarianism. So you can't say that communism was tried and failed, it was never tried. I don't think it would work in all the forms it was described. The problem is that people do perform out of the profit motive, and people like to think they are being compensated for their time, efforts, and brilliance. So, the whole "from each according to his abilities to each according to his needs" is also bogus. If you are willfully ignorant or lazy, you should suffer somewhat for it. That's how you pay for your mental and/or physical slothfulness (if that's a word). We do have an obligation to care for those that are in need, if for no other reason than to prevent an atmosphere or spread of misery.

I believe competition has reached a point where it is destructive to society. When investment bankers and lawyers are being produced in more numbers and making more money than engineers and doctors, we are in trouble. The siren song of competition tells us to take what the other person has and become strong at the expense of others. When civilization was primitive, we could see these principles at work as barbarian hordes rode into all the civilized cities and killed everyone and took what they wanted. We put up with this kind of behavior within civilized society when we can dress it up with laws and procedures and make it seem clean and justified. But how is a lawyer suing a doctor for malpractice for a multimillion dollar settlement justified? This is ruining people who stepped forward, sacrificed and worked hard to serve society, and doing it for sport and profit. This is the worst perversion of democracy the legal system has ever come up with. Engineers get it pretty bad, too. Some bonehead either doesn't maintain a piece of equipment or uses it in a manner it was never meant to be used, and of course the engineer should pay to the point of ruin for someone else's mistake. I'm not saying there should never be consequences for medical incompetence or that flawed products should not be recalled or banned. However, companies that are trying to bring you the next wonder drug will never be able to do it at an affordable price if the number one sport of tort attorneys in this country is the class action lawsuit against pharmaceutical firms.

And what about our current energy crisis? I was in high school the last time gas prices skyrocketed. Right when I reached the age of the Teenaged American Dream including the magical driver's license and first car, gas was too expensive to allow for much freedom. America just spent the last 30 years drifting, not preparing for the next crisis. How does this happen? It's in the interests of the huge (enormously profitable) companies that bring you energy and transportation to keep their lock on the consumer. They've fought emissions and fuel efficiency standards for 30 years. This has not served us well. It has not served the auto companies either. Look at how Japan is sprinting past GM with the vigor of a marathoner passing a geriatric with emphysema. What happened to American know-how and ingenuity? What happened to leading the world with technology? Things are the way they are because competition demands that those on top with the money keep things going like they are and prevent any innovation.

America got its first technological boost in the 1700's with the innovation of textile mills. The concepts were simple, use water power and put all of the processes to manufacture cloth under one roof. Raw material in one side of the plant, finished product out the other. England had all the elements of this simple, cost effective, efficient, and highly profitable system in their hands, but were powerless to implement them. They had guilds that were threatened by this new way of doing things and worked to prevent any improvements. Look at England today compared to America. The textile revolution is where we catapulted past in technology and industry. How is what the oil and auto companies are doing to us now any different? If Congress had forced the U.S. Auto Industry to make continuous improvements on fuel efficiency, they would be as competitive if not more by now. They may not have liked it, they may have had to raise prices, but they would have all been in the same boat and would have all been equally hampered in the beginning, and equally healthy and profitable by now.

I believe the world needs to find ways to provide an individual's energy and clean water needs at a grass roots level. We should transform the technology we use to provide these commodities and then sell that technology to the rest of the world. We need to start a revolution and overthrow our corporate overlords. Capitalism has the potential to kill the golden goose if knowledge can be bottled up and either kept away from us or used against us. Information should be a free exchange that generates prosperity for everyone. A healthy a prosperous world, where everyone's energy, food, and water needs are met without taking away from others is a worthy goal. Can you imagine any group of people in the world being disgruntled if all their basic needs are met? Of course, health care and education are pretty basic needs, too, so there are social needs to be met as well to make the picture complete. I believe that terrorism would whither on the vine if it weren't for massive disparities in health, wealth, and opportunity. This is where the real strength of cooperation and the free exchange of knowledge comes in.