Why haven't we heard of Jamie Johnson, heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune? a GREAT

[JDPriestly]

20. I watched close to half of the first film and loved it.

I would like to respond to Friedman's argument.

I agree that the entrepreneurs who make the first generation of wealth are motivated by the will to amass more and more and work hard because it is fun for them to see their assets overtake and way outpass their debts. In the process, the creative entrepreneurs, those who place products on the market that help people, deserve, in my opinion to enjoy what they do and should be encouraged to do more and more. They are engines of our economy.

But, they aren't the only engines of our economy. And they should be taxed at a much higher rate than they are because, the real engines that move their products and services and heat up an economy enabling progress are the customers.

In fact, clearly, without the demand of his customers, an entrepreneur fails.

Most really innovative entrepreneurs like the founder of Kinko's or Bill Gates need lots and lots of customers. And those customers have to have the wish or need to buy what the entrepreneur offers AND the money to buy or pay for the entrepreneur's products and services.

So, entrepreneurs need a healthy economy in which money is not only flowing to a small number of very rich people at the top, but also to the middle class, and yes, to those who are too poor to even be considered middle class.

The biggest problems arise, as the film maker suggests in the first scenes, when wealth is handed down from generation to generation.

Imagine a game of Monopoly. (I used to love that game.) Now imagine that you are playing against three other players -- four in all. When the game starts, one of the other players has already be awarded Broad Street and several other streets as well as hotels on the streets. What's more that player started with a bankroll 10 times the size of yours. In other words, the game starts out with one of the players having inherited enormous wealth -- like the wealthy people in the movie.

Very frankly, no matter how good or bad a player you are, if you are that player who inherited many of the properties on the board, your chance of "winning" in the end is many, many times greater than those of any other player. That advantage is magnified many times if the player who was rich to start with has a champion Monopoly player at his side (or maybe two or three) advising him on what moves to make and what to buy and sell and when.

If you are playing against that kid, you lose most if not all of the time. It's guaranteed from the outset. There is no game. And in fact, if you have ever been much, much better than your friends at a lot of games and if you win even when you try to lose, you will find that you are maybe admired, but not liked a lot. It's just the way it is.

Everybody wants to win at something. Everybody wants to win sometimes. And those who hog all the game pieces and don't let others win, can't expect to be liked. That's why games have rules. We want all the kids to be able to play as well as they can. If one kid is virtually declared the winner from the get-go, other kids have no chance to win and are unlikely to want to play at all.

And so, in our society, many, many kids with potential, creative kids who want to work hard are shut out of the process, unable to compete and become too discouraged to even try.

Occasionally, a kid wins out against all the odds. But most of the time, if you look into the details of that person's life, you find that the winners started with some huge advantage -- like money.

Of course, back to our monopoly game, if the dog walks under the tipsy card table that everyone is playing on, the board and all the pieces and maybe the cards too, get thrown around and some player who didn't get the initial advantage of the inheritance may be able to grab a few the cards for a couple of the valuable plots of land when no one is watching.

That is analogous of course to our economy when we have a boom followed by a horrendous crash. Think about what happened in the 1930s and 1940s.

But, of course, as we saw in the final days of the Bush II era, the oligarchy, the conceited upper class with its advisers and experts has learned how to buy the government and the Fed chair for good measure and just rob everybody on the board blind when the dog upsets the game board.

I favor inheritance taxes -- big ones -- on the major fortunes. And I favor trade restrictions that strongly protect lower level American jobs.

The idea of capitalism -- of rewarding creativity and hard work is great. But the idea of rewarding trust fund bums is awful.

And I am very grateful that the maker of the films who could himself have chosen a life of polo and sailing and luxury and hobnobbing with nobility has chosen to speak out on behalf of ordinary people. Thanks.

By the way, the one thing that bothered me in the movie is the bad rap for the game of croquet. We played as children although we were very, very far from rich, maybe not really even middle class. It's a lot of fun. But you have to a flat piece of land preferably with some grass on it. You definitely do not need to play croquet in white outfits. No way. Scruffy shorts are the best. I wish that game would become popular again.

Interesting article about Jamie Johnson and his family. The story of the case against Ms. Piasecka-Johnson over her inheritance is famous.