Hey PD. American’s paying twice on the same money? You mean the tiny fraction of the wealthy. Sorry dude, those workers you were talking about need to leave 3-5 million dollars or more to their heirs. Thats not American’s, thats the 1%.
I am not advocating changing the capitalist system, just making it more fair. I love how everyone thinks the economy is doing great. The economy isn’t doing great, the wealthy are.
Am I guilty about making most of the money in selling my company? Maybe a little? Possibly. The funny thing is that we had some people in our company making 50% more than they should have. But they have been with us for more than a decade – so we did reward the people with profit sharing, way above average salaries, and a matched 401K. Thats why they didn’t leave. When I started my company I worked 15 hours a day for a year and a half. I took 8 days off during that period (I’m including weekends and holidays – I worked 7 days a week.). I took chances that none of my employees could conceive of (like leaving a good paying job), and when they went home to relax and spend time with the family – I went home to write more code (I had to run the company during the day). It paid off and I deserve it. But if I was told that the tax rate would be 15% higher – I would have worked just as hard.
PD – I agree about the social services. As I said, I’m not a bleeding heart. I would spend a LOT more money in watchdogs for government. For every 15 dollars in military spending I would spend 1 $ in oversight (right now it’s probably about .002 cents!) That would actually probably save a 1/3rd of our budget. I hate waste, but I hate saying that if it’s wasteful just forget the whole thing. Sounds too much like the scene in Oliver (the musical) where the poor boys are eating gruel, and the guys in charge of the work house are eating a huge sumptuous dinner!
Being a business person – I would love to apply good management techniques, good budgeting, and true forecasting to what is right now a shambles… But most of all as a person with a social conscience, and a person with a well developed moral code (away from the influence of religion and cults), I would love to try to fix the problem, not get rich off it and say ‘ oh well – thats all they deserve ‘. (I’m not directing that at you PD).
p.s. The world wouldn’t end if executives had to fly first class and actually had to perform to earn money. It also woudn’t end if instead of 30 Million an exec made 3 million (or a hedge fund manager made 10 million, not 150 million). It would only depress the real estate market in La Jolla and Vail.
