A large, diverse national economy is healthiest and strongest when the vast majority of its population are paid well enough to purchase an enormous variety and quantity of goods and services it does not absolutely need in order to survive. This requires either the presence of strong labor unions or federal regulations that limit the ratio of executive to employee compensation.
One need not have earned a PhD. in economics to understand this concept. To the contrary, it's well within the educational and cerebral capacity of most Americans to grasp. Yet tens of millions of American voters attempted to elect a man who is not only an obvious sociopath, but who's ideas about employee compensation are indistinguishable from 19th century robber barons.
Are Americans really that stupid, or is there in our culture a blind worship of the rich and powerful that overwhelms both self interest and common sense?
"Are Americans really that stupid, or is there in our culture a blind worship of the rich and powerful that overwhelms both self interest and common sense?"
ReplyDeleteIt's really both. Americans have been told so many times that the current system works fabulous, and anything opposite of it is Communism, that they fanatically believe it.
Never underestimate the value of propaganda.... In a Democracy, one does need the support of the most intelligent to reign, just enough dumb people.
A few days ago I had $1.28 burning a hole in my pocket and a couple of hours to waste. And waste it I did.
ReplyDeleteI rented Atlas Shrugged II from Red Box.
I found it to be very entertaining, not because it was well made, but because it was so bad it was fun to wait for the next bad cliché. I managed to read about half way through Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead many years ago. I stopped reading because Ayn Rand simply wore out the argument that the world has a small number of hypercompetent individuals and a vast number of parasitic morons. The movie was even worse but I can understand why it would appeal to millions of Americans who know more about the Kardashians than they do about the people who represent them in Washington.
Ameriduh.
I once read about a business executive who doesn't like to read much because "his time is valuable" but who makes a point of reading Atlas Shrugged every single year.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read it but Republicans seem obsessed with it a whole lot.
Atlas Shrugged is to Republicans what Mein Kampf is to the Nazis.
ReplyDeleteBoth books reinforce the idea that the reader or the chosen group is superior but they are being held back or dragged down by inferior, parasitic people who should be subjugated before the chosen group's greatness. It's a very seductive message, particularly for clueless, born rich sociopaths like Mitt Romney.
I was disgusted to see Romney and his son at the service for the Marathon bombing victims as it is precisely the behavior of people like him that help to inspire such a high degree of homicidal rage.