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Get in Line Before the Food Runs Out
By George P. Lemaire, Plymouth
I'm amused by Perry Gardner's cornball analogy, "Why the ‘Rich’ Won't Be Coming to Lunch" [March 29]. He assumes that all rich people are fair and play by fair rules to benefit humanity, while in actuality, most get their gains by manipulating the system. As an example: What does Gardner think of patriots such as Stanley Works in New Britain, who—with the help of our fearless leader, Nancy Johnson—moved their manufacturing jobs to China and are now in the process of moving their offices to Bermuda? This to avoid paying taxes. And now Stanley has the gall to mark their tools "Made In America" when in reality these tools are now made in China.
Does Gardner think that Adam Smith, the father of free enterprise, had this in mind?
In 1926, three years before the Great Depression, John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay he called "The End of Laissez-Faire," which predicted the Great Depression. This was a treatise on Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. Keynes made the observation that free enterprise, when left to its own devices, would lead to depressions—simply because it's human nature that fat pigs eating at the trough, unrestricted, will ultimately starve out all the smaller pigs. Enron is a prime example of what happens to free enterprise when left to its own devices, unrestricted. And while free enterprise worked well when we were buying and selling apples for a reasonable profit, it does not work with money manipulators, who produce nothing except money at obscene profits.
So, the next time you go to lunch with Gardner's mythical rich, make sure you get in line before the food runs out, and make sure the rich don't pick your pocket in the name of free enterprise. Does anybody remember what happened to the savings and loan institutions when Reagan deregulated them in the name of free enterprise? Well, well—these patriots made $500 billion disappear! And to this day, nobody knows where the money went.
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