What’s Wrong With Making Money?
The American way is often confused with “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. Today, however, we are bombarded with news reports of successful people and companies, and the one criteria to qualify for news is to make money. More newsy is more money. Most newsy is making the most money. And what’s wrong with that?
In the abstract, nothing. In the specific, everything. Reading history there is no shortage of American heros and highly news worthy people who gained this notoriety by amassing (and spending) gobs of money. It seems to me, however, that in the past these “made rich” people actually did something (other than Ponzi schemes) to become wealthy. They may not have been perfect in ever respect but they did make things, invent things, or provide a critical service (like railroads). In doing so, they provided Americas with jobs, and products and services that made life fun and a lot easier. Money was simply their reward for creating value.
Today there is still some of that. Unfortunately, not enough, and there is more money to be made other ways. You can run a bank or investment firm and look for ways to make a sure bet when someone else (trying to do the same thing, make money without working) does not bet as well. No new products or services result from this and for sure no jobs results. You also could run an insurance company and deal in the field of health care coverage. This is an extremely important service but interestingly it is also a gold mine of opportunity to make money. With limited competition and a service that people can not do without, it is perfect for skimming profit. And with no regard for improving the quality or productivity of the service there is lots more time to think of ways to make more profit.
While some degree of regulations would help shield Americans from some extremes in money making, it would help us more to put greater emphasis on returning to basics, math, science, and engineering. We need people who get rich by making, mining, and growing “things”, and in the process providing jobs for many other Americans. This type of honestly earned money will make the Country strong and dilute the cancerous infection of the pure money making leaches.
This entry was posted on September 15, 2009 at 9:03 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Democratic Party, Politics, Republican Party. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: banking industry, health care, health care cost, health care reform, investment firms, math and science, productivity
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