Corporate officers make too much money--according to our egalitarians on the Left. Someone should pass a law limiting their pay to some small multiple of their workers' pay, they say.
Health care costs are going through the roof. Government should step in. If not price controls on the free market, then just take over the entire health care industry. Because Washington can run health care better than Blue Cross or Kaiser. There shouldn't be a profit motive in the health care industry.
Americans don't want to buy as many American cars as they used to. Let's keep the American car makers in business, but dictate to them what kinds of cars to make! And let's insist that they continue to pay homage to the UAW. And no, their CEOs cannot fly on a corporate jet. In fact, they should fly coach and wear sackcloth.
Witness, boys and girls, how easy it is to stoke up some class envy. Let's conveniently forget, though, that we Americans are the envy of the world--that we are as rich to most people on the planet as these CEOs are to us. If someone were able to enforce upon us all the class envy-based restrictions that are being contemplated for our own rich, we'd all lose.
We are the rich. What might you have to give up so some dirt-scratching farmer in Ethiopia can have just a little less of a reason to hate you?
only 6% of the world's population own a car. if you own a car, you're in the top 6% of wealthiest people in the world.
ReplyDeleteputs things into perspective, huh?
"If someone where able to enforce upon us all the class envy-based restrictions that are being contemplated for our own rich, we'd all lose"
ReplyDeleteThey are, please see Global Warming.
We're doing that to ourselves. I was referring to all the poor outside the US, how they might view us through this class envy lens, and what they'd impose on us.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember who said it, but someone said that America is the only place where the poor drive their cars to get their unemployment check. I know that's not true across the board, but when you see the "poor" people who have game systems, cell phones and cable TV, you have to wonder what their definition of poor might be.
ReplyDelete> only 6% of the world's population own a car. if you own a car, you're in the top 6% of wealthiest people in the world.
ReplyDelete> puts things into perspective, huh?
No, not really. What percentage of the world's population owned a car before India and China embraced capitalism even to the extent they have? What percentage will own a car a decade from now after the wealth-generating capabilities of capitalism have had that much longer to work its magic?
If you want some perspective, let's see how car ownership rates have changed over time, preferably delineated by country.