How about Franscico d'Anconia's money speech for good measure? Though my linking skills have been abysmal lately...

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=1826

Uncle Milty was certainly prophetic. The Left is desperate for everything to be equal all the time, ignoring the fact that every place where wealth is equally distributed, the populations are invariably equally poor, equally malnourished, equally illiterate & equally oppressed.

And as Mr. Schiff reminded us last October: "Just stop paying your mortgage".

"...the government's landmark $700 billion bailout package has an important message for you: stop making your mortgage payments..."

"Why pay your mortgage if foreclosure is off the table, and if you know that lower payments, and possibly a reduced loan amount, would result?"

"...the growingly popular impulse to “just walk away” should be replaced by “just stay and stop paying.” No one will throw you out. After a few months, or years, of living payment free, you will get a call from a motivated government agent eager to adjust your loan into something affordable."

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20081010/news_lz1e10schiff.html

What the anti-capitalists forget or conveniently overlook is that equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are two entirely different things.

>>What the anti-capitalists forget or conveniently overlook is that equality of opportunity and equality of outcome are two entirely different things.

Sounds snappy, Jay.
But I'm not sure it means a whole lot right now:)

The problem I'm having is how much the pro-capitalists are sounding like diehard Marxists.

I'm tired of being told it wasn't pure capitalism that failed, it was just the half-assed version that screwed us all. It's the same excuse the unapologetic lefties trot out.

Capitalism may not be perfect. Some people will always be poor, some will always starve. BUt it's better than any alternative since Eden. I'm so glad some people still have some sense.

Capitalism sucks

But every other alternative sucks worse.

It all comes down to the GREED factor. Some people are more greedy than others. Bernie Madoff is the greediest of them all. o.O

It is the second time I see a link towards d'Anconia's Money Speech on this very blog. I am not worried by this fact, I am worried by those who dint read the speech yet.

So easy to say some people will always be poor and starve when you're not one of them, eh?

Some people will always be poor and starve because a tiny fraction of our population holds the vast majority of its wealth and we don't ask them to share it (not enough, anyway). But I guess they must have it because they deserve it, not because having money makes it easier to get more money (and so on, and so on). And anyone who doesn't have money must not deserve to have it, must be lazy or stupid, so if they starve, hey, that's the way the cookie crumbles.

By the way, we don't have equality of opportunity. We might have it a lot better than a lot of other societies, but if you come from money, you automatically have far more opportunity than someone who doesn't. But as long as people gloss over that, they can subscribe to the mindset above without feeling any guilt about the plight of the people at the bottom. Yay!

Excellent!

Friedman draws an analogy between political self-interest to economic self-interest. It goes even further, though. Political clout generally derives from and serves finanacial interests.

empathize, didn't our current president come from a poor single mother? He didn't seem to have any problem getting into ivy leagues. My parents were both dirt poor growing up. I'm talking dad's family were itinerant construction workers, moms widowed mom worked piece work in a garment factory. Both are now very successful. Dad is, in fact, rich by most standards. Why? Worked hard, went to school.

Much better to say people who succeed should give their money to people who don't, aye? We should not reward hard work or success, oh no. Let's reward just being born. Much better.

Chronically unemployed poor people are that way for a reason. No one willing to work goes without a job for years on end. Period. Does being willing to work mean you'll someday have a private jet? No. That's life. But it does mean you won't starve. But very few of the oh so poor you like to champion are willing to walk behind a road paver shoveling up hot asphalt in the summer sun for minimum wage, like my dad did. No one owes them anything but a chance. They have to be willing to work.

> I'm tired of being told it
> wasn't pure capitalism
> that failed

No time for insinuation.. Are you saying it's not true? Play your cards...

But as long as people gloss over that, they can subscribe to the mindset above without feeling any guilt about the plight of the people at the bottom.

Who should feel guilt about the plight of the people at the bottom, and why? Those who actively contribute to their plight, who cause them to be on the bottom, that's who. How many people have you caused to be poor? I don't think I've caused anybody to be poor; on the contrary, by productively contributing to the economy I am helping the poor.

Only the guilty need feel guilt. A much healthier emotion to feel about the poor is compassion.

What if you're born with lazy genes? It's not your fault. Why should someone with go-get genes have all the rewards? No fair.

OK, empathize, I'll bite... how do you equalize? If you force everyone to do the same thing, their interest in internalizing the idea flags. Their interst in doing things for themselves ebbs and goes away.

This is the very kernel of capitalism... The individual goes off and does what they feel is best for them. Flogging somebody to climb a ladder is wholly different than them deciding to climb it themselves. In one way you own your life, in the other you just do what you are told, never going beyond the bounds...

That being rich gives you certain advantages is nothing new. It is also nothing new that wanting to get rich pulls you along. Wanting to do better for your children pulls you allong. Then their children are important to them, and so on, and so forth. The very reason that having more money benefits you and your children, is the reason you want to have more money. If you start making it so that there is no advantage to trying hard, people won't try. Peter principle or something.

How all that is accomplished, sure, open to interpretation. But if you don't wish to rise above where you are, you won't. I know a lot of fisrt and second gen immigrants and families that didn't let anything stop them. Not knowing the language or culture didn't stop them. They worked to the bone so their kids could go to school. Their kids worked to the bone so that their kids could go to college, and those kids excelled because so much of their family wouldn't accept anything less than excellence.

Tell me why I shouldn't expect that from somebody who is already here, who already knows the language? This place is about hard work and moxie. Those things are inside of you or they are not. The government can't make you do that, you have to discover it yourself.

"Some people will always be poor and starve..."

In America, the poor aren't starving. They're fat as pigs. The highest rates of obesity and obesity-related diabetes are found among inner-city blacks & hispanics, not among the idle rich in Manhattan & Beverley Hills. I was born in communist Czechoslovakia, and I can assure you that the poor people that I grew up with were not fat. My mother spent countless hours waiting in line outside state-owned markets for stale bread & sour milk, just like every other Czech citizen. Everyone, that is, except for members of the Communist Party, who did their grocery shopping in stores that had armed guards stationed outside ready to arrest or shoot any ordinary citizen who dared to enter.

People who think rich capitalists live in their own universe of privilege can't even begin to imagine the power & privilege of the ruling classes in supposedly classless socities. You do know that Fidel Castro is a multi-billionaire while most Cubans struggle to get by on less than $ 2 a day, don't you? Even in the darkest depths of the Great Depression, there was no famine in North America. Tens of millions starved to death in Stalin's Russia, Chairman Mao's China, Mengistu's Ethiopia, and the Dear Leader's North Korea.

My father escaped from behind the Iron Curtain and landed in Canada with a wife, 2 kids, no English words in his vocabulary except "hello", and less than $ 100 in his pockets. After just a few years of working & studying hard and grabbing every opportunity he could find, he made a comfortable middle-class existence for his whole family. Please take your sanctimonious prattle about the injustice of capitalism and shove it. Thank you.

"...a tiny fraction of our population holds the vast majority of its wealth and we don't ask them to share it (not enough, anyway)."

But they do share. They invest in existing companies and venture capital opportunities. They spend on goods and services. They spread their wealth around.

"By the way, we don't have equality of opportunity. We might have it a lot better than a lot of other societies, but if you come from money, you automatically have far more opportunity than someone who doesn't. But as long as people gloss over that, they can subscribe to the mindset above without feeling any guilt about the plight of the people at the bottom."

No, we don't have equality of opportunity.

Paris Hilton is dumber than a box of rocks and, thanks to a foresighted grandfather, will always have money to burn.

The Donald Trumps, Oprah Winfreys, and Jesse Jacksons of the world will always be able to get their kids and grandkids into Harvard or Yale.

All of those iniquities, however, don't mean that those at the bottom have no opportunities. Opportunities abound in this country. Perhaps the opporutnity to richer than God isn't offered to everybody, but the opportunity to do something to raise you status (and that of your children) is available to everybody in this country.

I know a few of those "at the bottom." And every one of them I know keeps making the same stupid decisions that keep them "at the bottom."

One quit her job because she didn't like her boss. She's never held a job more than three months before quitting for some reason or another.

Another keeps saying he's going to go to college, but never seems to make it to the local JC to pick up an application. He'd get a job, but "no one's hiring right now." He knows that because he went to a supermarket to apply and they told him they weren't hiring right now.

Empathize,

That's hilarious. Rich people do share. In fact, have you noticed what Buffet and Gates are planning on doing? Countless studies show that the richer you are, the more generous you are on a relative basis. Studies also demonstrate that lower income tax rates increase generosity on a relative basis as well. Before we had a government funded social safety net we had a voluntary one .. i.e. charities like the Red Cross provided unemployment insurance. Why did it work? Because people are very generous when they don't pay income taxes.

Jody Tresidder,

I don't get your argument. Are you saying it upsets you that capitalists have strong convictions? I would understand if you disagreed with those convictions ... but that doesn't seem to be what you are saying.

If you think capitalism and so-called American greed are bad, just compare our charitable giving to the rest of the world.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19409188/

Whenever disaster strikes, we're there with $50 million, $100 million, an insane amount of aid and manpower as a country. Then you see the U.K., Canada, Australia following up with still very respectable amounts, and finally with France dragging their heels at the bottom (???) See for yourself, check page three in the Summary:

http://www.cafonline.org/pdf/International%20%20Giving%20highlights.pdf

Throw in giving from John Q. Public's personal checkbook and it blows the top off.

Puhleeeeze.

in addition about sharing-is-caring? Some people call sharing, taxation. By that yardstick, those rich varmints make it count. The Top 1% of taxpayers pay 95% of all taxes. That means that the other 99% of taxpayers only pay 5% of all taxes. Why does anyone believe that isn't enough?

hmm, didn't like the link as spam, what'd I do? Oh, well, the stat is form the Taxprof blog about IRS data....

>>Are you saying it upsets you that capitalists have strong convictions?

Charles,
Not especially, no.

I'm simply saying that believing in pure capitalism sounds like believing in Marxism.

The theory looks fabulous if you take away human nature. But then everyone kicks in their own qualifying clauses of how the theory works best in the circumstances.

And exactly what circumstances we're in at present - that's the big question!

I'm simply saying that believing in pure capitalism sounds like believing in Marxism.

This little point annoy me. Would you say that a strong belief in Democracy is related to one in Fascism? It is not by comparing two ideals that we definite what is the better answer to a problem but by examining the previous result of those ideals. Comparing Capitalism's results to Communist ones clearly shows that Capitalism is a better model.

Do it is the ultimate ideal? I don't think so. This being said, until we will be able to pull goods out of thin air like Star Trek, Capitalism is the most productive and the most moral system out there.

And you think capitalism doesn't take into account human nature?

The fact is the causes of this crisis have nothing to do with free markets or capitalism. We have central authorities that have been dumping too much money into the system. Give people too much money and they will do stupid things with that money (like invest in insanely risky assets or lend to people who have no business getting a loan). It also helps to have a gov't that encourages stupid behaviour by guaranteeing everything under the sun. I fail to see how capitalism does take into account human nature. Of course you have those who think regulation would solve the problem. To which I ask, the next time the FED dumps too much money into the system, where will all that money go?

"I fail to see how capitalism doesn't take into account ...". sorry about that.

--I know a few of those "at the bottom." And every one of them I know keeps making the same stupid decisions that keep them "at the bottom."--

Exactly, Conan. That may not be true for everyone at the bottom, but it is certainly true for 95% of them. The rest don't STAY at the bottom. I was wretchedly poor for a while in my younger years, but I didn't stay that way. Mainly because I worked my ass off at two jobs, lived within my means, and didn't get pregnant. A very simple recipe, really.

I just can't listen when a mindless twat like 'empathize' tries to send me on a guilt trip. I don't feel guilty because other people are poor, and I don't feel guilty that I'm not. When I was poor, it wasn't because anyone else made me that way, and when I finally pulled myself out of being poor, it was by my own efforts. If you took all the wealth in the world and redistributed it evenly among all the world's people, it wouldn't change a thing. In two weeks everything would be right back the way it was before.

I have read enough absolute crap (in other places, not here) during the last couple of weeks to make my eyes bleed. Every time some rational voice presents a viable, workable solution to the current economic crisis, it is shouted down by a chorus of idiots who lack even the most basic, fundamental understanding of economics, and who don't even try to make a rational argument. Enough with the tearjerking, heartstrings-tugging, emotional handwringing. Over two hundred years this country has been around, and people act like they don't know why it succeeded while the Eastern Bloc failed?.

Oh, and Martin, you rock.

"In two weeks everything would be right back the way it was before."

Except there are a few more jumbo flat-screen T.V.'s and SUV's in poor neighborhoods.

While I'm on a roll, I've also been wondering about what seems to me the excessive importance placed upon "the gap between rich and poor" by some people. Momof3 and Conan touched on this earlier, mentioning the private jets and wealth of people like Oprah Winfrey. If the people at the "top" have those things, and the people at the "bottom" don't, well so what? If the people at the "bottom" still get plenty to eat, an education, and have their basic needs met, why does this gap matter?

I put "top" and "bottom" in quotes because I think it's worth mentioning that what puts a person at the top versus the bottom might not be money at all. I really don't think most people give a rat's ass about being as rich as Oprah or having a private jet, which is all the more reason I don't consider Oprah's wealth a tragedy. I'm poor compared to her, as far as money is concerned, but I don't consider myself poor. Please stop feeling sorry for me because I don't have as much money as Oprah! I don't use dollars as a way to keep score between people and didn't even know I was supposed to be keeping score in the first place.

Pirate Jo, I wasn't saying it was bad. I was saying there will always be people above you, but if you're willing to work, you can improve your lot. I dno't personally care for a private jet either, which is good since all the hard work in the world won't get me one personally :)

Capitalism DIDN'T fail.

Government failed. Government rigged the game to favor the losers, and the losers took the whole fucking thing down.

Never forget that.

True freedom is to be able to live life on as much of your own terms as possible.

To do so, you're probably going to need some skills and/or an education, the ability to produce a legal and sustainable personal revenue stream (i.e., job, trust fund, etc.), and a place to live that's not on a bank foreclosure list or an EPA clean-up list.

If you're "at the bottom," you're not living life on any of your own terms.

My ideal terms would be that I'm richer than Oprah and can openly show my utter contempt for humanity.

Oh well.

At least I have food in my refrigerator, several bottles of wine on my rack, and a car that I own outright.

Momof3, I didn't misunderstand you - just saying that your comment got me thinking about the gap between rich vs. poor, and why I don't see the gap as a big deal. I totally agree with your comments. People can shovel asphalt and still support themselves, and who cares if that doesn't involve a private jet, and why should we be upset that it doesn't? The beauty of it is, you don't have to shovel asphalt your whole life. There are plenty of wealthy people around today who did that for a living at one time or another. Maybe they ended up with their own paving company, or maybe they went to school in the evenings and learned to do something completely different for a living.

I am not a high wage earner by most stretches of the imagination, but I used to earn less than a third of what I do now. That wasn't because some rich person wasn't giving me enough of his money, but because the demand for my skills was low and the supply of people who could provide those skills was high. So I worked my butt off, got experience, and learned new skills.

Friedman is right on target - when you see the gap between rich and poor in America, realize that the gap only looks big because people are so uniformly poor in some other countries. Compare our poor to their average working person - now THERE's a gap worth looking at.

If you come from money, you have more to lose, and if the children of the rich provide any object lessons, it's that they lose more. But Paris Hilton's not a good example--she actually makes money. Maybe the people paying her are stupid, but that's not her fault.

"Some people will always be poor and starve because a tiny fraction of our population holds the vast majority of its wealth and we don't ask them to share it (not enough, anyway)."

But there's not a finite sum of money in the universe. We're not paying with gold nuggets. Bill Gates amassing a fortune doesn't take it away from me, nor lessen my ability to make my own.

Thank you, Pirate Jo!

Capitalism and the free market - the free exchange of goods and services for mutual benefit - doesn't just come naturally to human beings. It's much more primal than that. At every coral reef in the world's oceans, you will find patches of coral that have been set aside by the local fishes as "cleaning stations". Here you will find the biggest and scariest fish, like sharks and barracudas, floating contentedly with their mouths wide open, while smaller fish and shrimp swim between their teeth and right down their throats without a care in the world. It's as if the eat-or-be-eaten rules of nature have been suspended.

Why this this so? Because the ocean is a huge salty soup full of trillions of parasites, just waiting to latch on to passing fishes and suck their blood, cripple them and kill them. And fish can't turn their heads to bite parasites off their bodies, and they don't have hands or fingers to pick them off, either. So nature & evolution worked out a perfect solution. Selected areas of every reef that every fish can recognize are set aside as cleaning stations. Here, all the big fish know that they can count on helpful small fish to pick every parasite off every part of their bodies that they can't reach themselves. And all the small fish know that they can enjoy a buffet meal of all the parasites and dead scales & skin that they can eat, without having to worry about being on the menu themselves.

Free markets come naturally to free people. State control of the economy does not. It always has to be enforced, with totalitarianism and brutality. You'd think that with over a 100 million dead thanks to Karl Marx over the past 90 years that that would be obvious to everybody...

Brian;

That is, in my estimation, the greatest and most cogent way to explain how this all happened.

Bravo Zulu to you sir.

Seriously, I've just e-mail it out to two dozens friends.

farker -

Thank you. I'm honored.

But Paris Hilton's not a good example--she actually makes money.

She's a great example.

If she weren't an heir to the Hilton fortune and able to party with the other rich kids, she'd be dead broke, living in a trailer, and surrounded by six squealing kids.

The only reason she's able to make money in the way she does is because her name is Hilton. No one would buy Paris Jablonsky handbags, wear Paris Smith perfume, or watch Paris Jones movies.

I'll never, ever understand the popular hatred for Paris Hilton.

I don't hate her. I simply used her as an example. I could have used any other celebrity who got a head start in life due to famous ancestors (George Clooney, Sean Penn, Ivanka Trump, George Bush, RIchard Daley, etc.).

I don't say any one of these folks couldn't have made it on his or her own. But Ms. Hilton, has shown neither an extraordinarily high degree of brains, acting skills, or judgement. And I don't think she's "hot" either (but that's just my opinion).

I'll never understand is the appeal and popularity of Paris Hilton.

She's pretty.

Nobody ever bothered to hate Letiticia Casta that much.

It smells like Bush Derangement Syndrome... People are too eager to point a finger and say "Stoopid!" Some folks razzed Kournikova for being a second-tier tennis player, but it never got so vicious: Is Hilton meaningfully less intellectual than Anna?

"I'll never understand is the appeal and popularity of Paris Hilton."

She is a working girl even though she does not have to.

She could have easily married another trust fund holder and showed up at charity events couple times a year for the rest of her lives.

With the cards dealt to her, she chose to make her own money and create numerous jobs along the way. There is a huge international economy built around her.

I find her sexy a lot more than Mother Teresa.

"I find her sexy a lot more than Mother Teresa."

Chang, I'm not sure that Mother Teresa finds Paris Hilton sexy. And since Mother Teresa is dead, we exactly can't ask her.

The pyramids came from a government bureau. The Nuclear bomb came from a government bureau. Versailles came from a government bureau. The Taj Mahal, also a government project. The roads of Rome, government project, as were their temples.

I'm not saying that he has to be for government spending, and I hate the stimulus package myself, but to say that the great acheivements of civilization have not come out of the government bureau is not true... many, though not all, did.

Holy Cow, I agree with Chang. He said what I was going to say if some had offered another round.

I knew a guy who produced a TV show about the one who died-- thinking, thinki--- Anna nicole Smith a few years ago. She wasn't a deep or fascinating personality, but he said there was one thing to credit her for... She always worked. She did what people wanted her to do for money (no jokes).

It reminds me of what Seipp said about Hilton a few years ago. Paraphrased (I can look it up if you want, or you can Google it yourself: Hilton greets people warmly and makes eye contact over a firm handshake. She wants to be polite and she wants to be liked.

If she goes home to blow coke and other things, isn't that her own business?

Hey Nicolek---

The "achievements" you're talking about cost the lives of slaves. Let's resurrect them and get their opinion before we call them "man's" greatest works. "Government stimulus" in those days was a lash.

Hey, I'm with you guys on the "kudos to Ms. Hilton for working and not simply being a trustafarian." She's giving it her best shot and more power to her.

I was simply using her as an example of unequal opporutnities (while debunking the fact that unequal opportunities exist in this country does not mean there are no opportunities for the poor and downtrodden). She's made the most of the opportunities she had.

But, let's face it guys. Were she not Paris Hilton, heir to part of the Hilton fortune and partying every night with the rich and famous, she would most likely not be an international jet-setting party girl -slash- fashionista -slash- actor.

Granted, she'd be hard working, probably even considered pretty by some, and maybe even financially successful.

OTOH, if Paris had been born poor or middle class with non-clueless parents, she might have studied hard, gone to an Ivy League college and developed mad analytical skills, become a Wall Street analyst, and made a huge fortune in derivatives. Who knows?

But, let's face it, she's not that different from the Trump kids, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, or any of a dozen other rich kids who's road in life was smoothed by their ancestors but who have chosen to do something with their lives anyway.

And I don't care if she goes home to blow coke or the Lakers, I just don't understand what people see in her. But, to each his own.

And we may never know if Mother Teresa thought she was sexier than Chang thinks she is.