2008 Soap Box Archives

Greedy People

I know about as much about the stock market as a mule knows about the Theory of Relativity, and probably even less about international finance and such.

I don't know Fanny Mae from Freddy Mac or how mortgages are sold over and over again. I can't compute compound interest and know nothing about bond yields and trailing stops.

But I do realize that the US economy is in a tough place and I know there's enough blame to go around. One financial expert said that Alan Greenspan left interest rates too low for too long and made credit too easy to obtain for people who couldn't afford it.

We all know about government's role, or should I say non-role in the whole thing and now they're wanting to take taxpayer money and bail out badly run companies, a dangerous move in my book, since there could well be a domino effect on Wall Street and they can't possibly bail out every company that gets in trouble. So where does it stop?

As I stated before, I don't pretend to understand the world of Wall Street and high finance, but one thing I do know, when we get to the bottom of the barrel of causes, we will find a huge chunk of one of man's baser emotions, greed.

I have nothing against the heads of companies making ridiculous amounts of money as long as they make ridiculous amounts of money for their employees and stockholders.

But when these guys run companies into the ground and bail out in their golden parachutes and leave the stockholders and employees holding the bag it is plain out wrong and no amount of lawyer talk or high brow doubletalk can make it right.

Stockholders put their money into the hands of these people and have a right to know that the executives of a company are at least as exposed as they are to the fortunes of the stock they've invested in.

How many times have you seen it happen lately, some company goes belly up and you don't hear a thing about it until a day or two before it happens? In the meantime the top executives, having prior knowledge of the debacle, have time to divest themselves of their poison holdings in one way or another and go their merry ways in their limos and private jets, while the 401K's of everyday Americans lose large percentages of their value.

That's greed, folks. That's saying, I've got mine and I don't give a whit about you or what you lose because of my incompetence, I'm going to buy a few mansions and spend the rest of my life skiing or lying around in the sun while you scramble and try to make some provision for your fastly approaching old age and you employees can just get out on the street at fifty years-old and try to find another lucrative profession.

You can pass laws, make regulations and make long, puffed-up speeches on the floor of the Congress, but it will do little to abate greed.

The only way to deal with greedy people is to take away the thing they cherish the most, their ill-gotten money.

Pray for our troops.

What do you think?

God Bless America

Charlie Daniels

 

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