Greenwich Roundup: 07/28/08 "What I do not like however is exploitation and the way that people who get into power seem to have a nasty habit of bending the rules so..."

Monday, July 28, 2008

07/28/08 "What I do not like however is exploitation and the way that people who get into power seem to have a nasty habit of bending the rules so..."

item 94 - the problem with capitalism

I believe in the free markets and capitalism, but in recent years I have grown uneasy at the excessive wealth that some people have accumulated. These feelings of unease have been most acute when looking at the money made in the hedge fund and software industries. This at first seems strange, but bear with me......

....If you go to Greenwich Connecticut, you cannot help but be impressed by the fabulous houses the fund managers live in. Dig a little deeper though, and you will quickly notice that behind every fabulously wealthy hedge fund manager is a Mexican gardener or Puerto Rican maid. Those who got rich did it by getting a big helping hand from cheap exploitable labor.

The same is true in the investment banking industry. The name of the game is to get yourself into a role and position where you are part of the money making machine and can therefore choose where the arbitrary boundary lies between revenue generation and cost centre. You, as a revenue generator pay yourself more than you are worth, while ensuring that everyone in the cost centre is underpaid. This simple game should be impossible to play in a free market, right? Well yes, except that we get onto my third problem with free market capitalism, the market is rigged....

....So to re-cap, my issues with capitalism are:

The free market is rigged to serve the interest of a few
Those who got to the top through competition, then change the rules so that no one else can play
People are exploited and under-paid by those who have wealth an power

Comment:

Over 6,000 Connecticut Working Families' Homes Were Foreclosed On:

To Lose Your Home means you have:

1. No cash
2. No savings
3. Nothing in the checking account
4. You own no stocks
5. You own no mutual funds
6. You have no college savings accounts for your kids to tap
7. You have nothing in your 401K in which to borrow from
8. You have no IRA in which can take money from for 60 days, penalty-free.
9. You have already taped into your mortgage equity.
10. You have no credit cards available.
11. You don't have anything to sell in a garage sale or on Ebay.
12. You don't have anything to pawn.
13. You can't get an advance from your employer.
14. And you have no friends, parents, or children who will loan you money.
15. Months ago you stopped sleeping through the night and you worry constantly.

That's pretty low and unfortunately is how more and more families are experiencing the American Dream.

The American Dream is belief in the freedom that allows all citizens and residents of the United States to achieve their goals in life through hard work. Today, it generally refers to one's material prosperity depending upon one's abilities and work ethic — not a rigid class structure. Although the phrase's meaning has evolved in the course of national history, for some people, it is the opportunity for achieving greater material prosperity than was possible in the old country; for others, it is the opportunity for their children to grow up receiving an education and its consequent career opportunities; for others, it is the opportunity to make individual choices without the constraints of class, caste, religion, race, sexual orientation, or ethnic group. The American Dream has changed over the centuries, but it still has the basic concept of freedom for all people.