This was the main story on CNN.com the other day:
Struggling Ford Motor Company, which posted a record $12.7 billion net loss in 2006, gave its new CEO Alan Mulally $28 million for four months on the job, according to a statement filed Thursday. The details were made public as Ford moves ahead with plans to close plants and cut more than 30,000 hourly positions in an effort to stem losses.* CNN.com
What sort of justification can be used to make this right? Thirty thousand Americans are going to be out of a job while a CEO makes $7 million a month? That strikes me as terribly immoral and obscene.
Follow that up with a case of the U.S. government doing the exact same thing:
The Department of State will not rule out paying a salary to Sam Fox, the major Swift Boat Veterans For Truth donor who was recess appointed as US Ambassador to Belgium by President George W. Bush yesterday.”That’s not something we’re allowed to get into,” Lesley Phillips, a State Department spokeswoman, told RAW STORY when asked whether or not the millionaire businessman would be paid for his services.
So, here’s what happened if you missed out. Bush knew this guy wouldn’t get approved by the Senate, so he withdrew his nomination. The Senate goes on break and what happens? Bush makes a recess appointment and gives his Swift Boat financier an ambassadorship. I find it funny which taxer-payer funded expenditures taxpayers complain about. This one, in particular, bothers me as a taxpayer.
And this fella – he’s a millionaire. But do you doubt for one second that the Bush regime is not going to pay their friend?
April 8, 2007 at 12:50 am |
I think the example of the Ford company shows that capitalism is a system of classes and the system is there to prop up the needs of the rich and these people that produce all the wealth and makes them rich? Well, they don’t give a fuck about them.
July 6, 2007 at 12:39 am |
I think you are just not understanding how this works. Do you remember the bread lines in the Soviet Union? Should we just abolish all the wealth that anyone has accumulated and become communists?
People are paid those high salaries and benefits because they have become successful. They became successful by making large amounts of money for the corporations they run, which in turn produce products and services, supply jobs, and pay a lot of taxes. Without these corporations not only would we have no products to buy but we would not have any money to buy them. I guess that would be fair though seeing as how there would be no rich people or classes.
Innovation also depends on something to drive it. In a free and open market individuals and corporations are driven to create new products, sometimes when a market has not even existed yet due to the desire to be wealthy. Without capitalism this drive to innovate is driven only by war and conflict. People have no motivation to create and innovate when they are stuck in a commodities line waiting for the Glorious Leader to provide them with basic necessities.
It’s pretty obvious to see that communism and socialism have failed and are failing around the world. What you are suggesting here is that we should just drop everything and go back a few hundred years. But gee, at least it would be fair.
And if, as you so authoritatively declare, capitalism is a disease then what is the cure? I think you might be welcomed in Cuba or Venezuela if you would like to try communism out and see how well you like it.
July 24, 2007 at 8:53 am |
I have not seen any documented evidence of the “bread lines” in the Soviet Union.
If you have evidence to corroborate the “bread lines” to which you refer, I would appreciate your pointing them out to me.
Most likely you are regurgitating crap you heard other right wingers bullshitting about on low-brow, rightwing talk radio.
So please make public any evidence you have re: Soviet bread lines.
Also, we ration goods here in the USA right now…..by the ability to pay for them !
If bread, or cars, or any product is subsidized so that its cost is not an issue to the public, it is then likely that shortages will occur.
Here in the good old USA we don’t have that problem…as I say, here in the land of the free, we ration goods according to the money in your pocket.
September 29, 2007 at 10:48 pm |
hi, this may sound a bit maurawnic, im only 20 years old so political ignorance is to be expected to an extent, possibly its fair to say that especially so in a country where information of political nature is limited in people particularly the younger generation,mostly due to the use of selective information thats given to us or even propaganda being a plausible description? i just feel that the things which make me feel most weary about our society is ,1 – the rate of inflation in comparison to the rate of wage increases and how its depressingly compulsary for us all to just adjust to that?
it almost makes you understand alot of crime that happens, who has the incentive to live a straight life when the country is ruled by corrupt leaders
which expect us all to take part in their corrupt laws without questioning them? i feel the place has quite rapidly and continues to become a shallow materialistic commercial tornado that no one can avoid getting caught up in, personally im not a total pro communist but deffinately more to the left than right, i find it disheartening to continually spectate on wealth driven obnoxious d heads driving around in their multi hundred thousand pound cars with their completely unnecessary luxuries, im not anti materialism although to me is it not just a nice balance to appreciate a home of your own a vehicle to get you from a to b, reason being that i think its disgusting how lavish some people live and are happier to spend money that way than to do something meaningful with it does this make any sense?