OPINION:
I have been extremely lucky the past couple of weeks. My net worth, along with the net worth of more than 320 million other Americans, has gotten billions closer to that of the Walton family, the founders of Walmart. Recently the Waltons’ net worth dropped $10 billion in one day due to declining profits and stagnant sales.
Walmart is laying people off at corporation headquarters and will hire fewer people and build fewer stores — meaning the government will collect fewer property, payroll, sales and income taxes, suppliers will sell fewer goods and services and the poor and middle class will have fewer opportunities. But inequality has gone down, so the Democratic presidential candidates and President Obama can be proud of that.
The quickest way to reduce inequality is to have real estate, stock prices and businesses collapse. The poor and middle class will also be hurt, but inequality will have been reduced.
Instead of denigrating successful individuals and businesses, we should celebrate them (as long as they get their money honestly). Capitalism (free enterprise), profits, risk-taking and wealth are what has made the United States the greatest economic powerhouse in the world — in less than 250 years.
U2 frontman Bono was right when he said that capitalism takes more people out of poverty than government aid. Democrats want less capitalism and more aid.
It certainly does not hurt the poor and middle class when rich people buy Teslas from Democratic billionaires such as Elon Musk. What does hurt these people is when people use our taxpayer dollars and borrow money from future generations to subsidize these purchases.
The Democrats continually complain about the rich getting richer, which means they don’t understand that most of the richest 1 percent today is not made up of the same people who were among the richest 1 percent five, 10 or 20 years ago. Capitalism gives people the opportunity to move up and down the economic ladder. Thank goodness that the richest 1 percent today are richer than the richest 1 percent was two decades ago. Otherwise the economy would not be growing.
The goal should be equal opportunity, not equal results. The best way to achieve equal this is to allow the private sector to keep more of its money to spread throughout the economy. The worst way is to have the ever-powerful government continue to take a greater share from the risk-takers and to make more people dependent.
JACK HELLNER
Springfield, Ill.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.