Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Meet The Press – about the 1/11/09 ‘edition’

Written : Jan. 18, 2009



Former House of Representative David Bonier (D-MI), a member of President-Elect Obama’s “Economic Tranisition Team”, asked himself a couple of rhetorical questions during the January 11, 2009 edition of “Meet The Press”. He asked, “What do we want out of the stimulus package?” Then he asked, “What are we wanting to recover to?”, which meant, "To which point in recent history do we wish to return?" Both of these were great questions.


The shock came when he actually answered the questions and proposed solutions. He said that he doesn’t want to return to the unbalanced pyramid of our economic structure, which he said is due to the irregularity of income at the top. He wants to “get a hold of” the irregularities of wages and income. He said it’s “skewed the wrong way”. So, to fix this problem he wanted more collective bargaining and more union control. That, dear reader, is a socialist idea, and as we’ve seen over the past 90 or so years of ‘experimentation’, socialism simply does not work.


Bonier’s typically liberal solution is exactly what we don’t need, and here’s why (and I’ll begin with a question to Mr. Bonier and to those who would unfairly equalize incomes by taking from those, for example, who take risks and by giving to those who do not take risks): Don’t you ever wonder why America can’t compete with foreign automobile manufacturers? It’s because the American auto companies pay their workers way too much in salary and compensation benefits. In turn they have to charge their customers more for each car in order to make a profit. (And, they do have to make a profit - so that they can continue to employ their people and to be able to produce more cars.) Don’t you realize that that is precisely why the government is bailing out the carmakers? So, once they get their bailout billions, how will you, Mr. Bonier, fix it so it doesn’t happen again (the need for another bailout)? Oh, I see, you’d want the workers to make even more – so the car companies will have to charge even more. In that case, we’d never be able to afford their cars and the car czars will be back soon, asking for more money. It just can’t work that way. To not end up in the same mess again, we'll have to actually fix the problem!


When the people who take the risks of capital get their ROI (returns on investment), they deserve to receive their compensation, even if it’s a lot of money. The workers do not take the risks in the system, the businessmen do. The investors therefore deserve more income so that they can make more investments. It’s capitalism 101. Why should the workers ever get paid as much as the owners of a business? Now, don’t say “NBA” or “MLB”! They simply shouldn’t!

No comments: