Think About It - Captialism As It Is Now Being Practiced A Failure.

[SilveryMoon]

47. Power corrupts and absulte power corrputs absolutely

This phrase is one of the ideas of how our government should work. Power corrupts and thus government should be small in order to prevent a monarchy or some sort of government that stifles individual freedom.

Money is power. It buys flexibility from rules, it buys lawyers to ensure you receive only the lightest of punishments, nowadays it even allows you to buy loyalty from politicians. A celebrity or politician who has lots of money can afford a good lawyer and avoid jail time for drug possession/use, where somebody who has no money or political connections is looking at jail time and a ruined life. Enough time with enough money and you may end up looking down on people who make a fraction of what you make.

Why this basic idea never really made its way to how we as a country viewed capitalism is beyond me. People who are worth billions or hundreds of millions can have a radically different way of looking at life than the common people. We see it in how they view taxes, (they move money offshore to avoid them when taxes are already low compared to the past) and we see it in how they view workers (outsource jobs where people are happy to accept a few dollars a day in unsafe working conditions all day everyday, or in the case of Wal-Mart, paying your workers minimum wage and keep them from full time status so you don't have to pay benefits and healthcare.) Hell we see it in how much money they throw at politicians who turn around and write new loopholes in the tax code to exploit but refuse to spend that money paying workers here a living wage.

Look at how much union members are paid compared to CEOs. Unions that come together and demand slightly more money and benefits or better working conditions get shut down and prevented from collectively bargaining while CEOs destroy those jobs, send them overseas and pocket the profit.

If that is not a solid case of money corrupting or drastically altering how people view the world around them, I don't know what is. This mentality, this corruption, this blatant love of money over people, over country, has given rise to a dangerous and savage form of capitalism that is choking the life of the US and others. This outlook will strangle the whole planet eventually. (If it isn't already).

And it will continue to choke the life of the US if people don't realize that the mythical job creators are not going to create jobs here in the US. They will create jobs where they can take advantage of cheap labor, lax labor and environment laws, and low taxes and maximize their (already huge) profits. They have had years to create jobs and what did we get? Countless jobs shipped overseas, wages that have not kept with inflation and middle class people paying higher federal income taxes than people like Mitt Romney.

Speaking of Mitt Romney, who believes almost half he country are moochers who refuse to take responsibility for themselves (who are too poor to pay taxes largely thanks to people like him destroying jobs). And people like Paul Ryan who believe Social Security is an "entitlement" (except when he uses it thanks to his father) when people have been paying into these programs all their working lives. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are perhaps two of the clearest examples of this mentality of how money can corrupt.

Until the US recognizes that making a profit is all well and good until you begin to screw over your employees and country just because you have an uncontrollable greed for more profit, this savage form of capitalism will continue to strangle the country. What will take to end this savage capitalism, I haven't a clue. But I firmly believe that the US as a whole needs to stop excusing these corrupt parasites first and foremost. I think instead of saying "well businesses need to make a profit to survive and those unions are greedy (Union members get paid how much? CEOs get paid hundreds of times more than the average employee)" or "government taxes are too high (It's at its lowest point for individuals and profitable corporations can not only get out paying the corporate taxes, but get money back from the government)" people should start organizing boycotts or protests of business who park their money overseas or outsource jobs for no better reason than the love of more money.

And people need to start asking themselves if an elected official can be corrupted by love of power, why can't a wealthy person or corporation be just as corrupted by a love of money?