The true point of this article is between the lines.
Wall Street has run the show for far too long. The pendulum has swung away from worker interests toward shareholders the minute Ronald Reagan entered the White House like a plague bacillus.
The truth is the imbalance.
Profit should NOT be as high as it is. Executive salaries, particularly those of CEOs, have NO business being as high as they are.
The plain fact is that unless the interests of labor are held EQUAL with the interests of shareholders, then our economy stays a house of cards like it is now.
And, yeah I know. Capitalism sucks. No doubt about that. We need some strong government in there creating and enforcing regulation. Let me read you a quote from a soldier who served in the 101st Airborne during WWII. He landed in Normandy, marched through France, Belgium and then into Germany. He also voted the first time in November 1944, when he was 22. Here's what he had to say:
"I had to walk almost 2 miles to cast my ballot, but I would have walked ten, because this was my first vote - I was 22 in June - and I had always wanted to cast it for Roosevelt, the greatest President we had ever had and the only one who ever gave the working man a break. Roosevelt had faced and overcome the two great crises America had ever suffered: the worst depression in history and the world's biggest war. He was a politician, as crafty and conniving as any, for politics is a cesspool of lying lawyers, but his work was greater than the man, and the country was better for it. The rich Republicans hated Roosevelt for helping the working man, encouraging the labor unions to wring a fair day's wage for a fair day's work out of employers who had never heard of such a thing before and for putting into effect fair employment practices that they considered outrageously socialistic..."
Think about that for a minute. After WWII, the New Deal was still in place and we had the greatest time of prosperity the world had ever known - right up until trickle down economics came into the White House and the Congress.
Capitalism, I'm afraid, isn't going to solve some of the problems we all know we have unless it is forced by government legislation, regulation and sound policy. Corporations aren't people. They are not capable of moral behavior because of the profit motive. They are not capable of self-regulating. They have no interest in social, environmental or economic justice.
The only thing that can save us is we ourselves - we have to get active in local politics, keep abreast of the issues and hold the people we elect to represent us accountable for actually representing us instead of corporations. Period.