Is Greed Really "Good"?

Despite Gordon Gekko's pronouncement that "Greed... is good. Greed is right. Greed works," a clear-headed look at how our politicians and policymakers treat economics, wealth, and class demonstrates (to me at least) that greed isn't all that "good."

"Wall Street" came out nearly 20 years ago, yet a lot of what the film epitomized is still with us today. Witness Gekko's commentary on wealth:

The richest one percent of this country owns half our country's wealth, five trillion dollars. One third of that comes from hard work, two thirds comes from inheritance, interest on interest accumulating to widows and idiot sons and what I do, stock and real estate speculation. It's bullshit. You got ninety percent of the American public out there with little or no net worth..."

While I have nothing against hard work, I do feel that salaries and our present tax system are quite inequitable. I find it amusing when I take on-line polls that ask if I consider myself "am member of the investor class." With the exception of two people, no one I know invests, or owns anything of worth beyond their homes and cars. In fact, more and more people I know are juggling bills and credit card debt in the struggle to maintain and expand their dreams. While some are obviously living beyond their means (I'm beginning to understand how many recent college graduates are racking up debt: drinking in the clubs every weekend puts a real dent in your wallet!), others are being as frugal as possible and still coming out shortchanged more often than not.

Yet our gummint prefers to ignore the majority of the people in this country, and instead shower its fiscal largesse on tax cuts for the rich. One of the people that tax money is being returned to is Lee Raymond, the retiring Exxon Oil executive, who received a $400 million farewell (which includes personal security, the use of a company jet, and other lovely perks). He earned over $69 million last year, which comes to over $190K a day.

A couple months back, during the uproar over the fiscal debacle at CSD, quite a to-do was made over Ben Soukup's total compensation package of over $850K. A friend and I worked it out-- Soukup made in two weeks what my friend made in an entire year.

These salaries are just in the business world-- there's also the entertainment and sports worlds, where actors command multi-million dollar incomes from one movie, and sports figures (who are really just entertainers, when you think about it), are signed to multi-million dollar contracts even before they've done anything (not to mention working the same length of time the average teacher does in this country-- maybe 8-9 months out of the year. Somehow I think our teachers, who are teaching and training the next generation, deserve a wee bit more than someone who plays a game and performs before an audience for two hours 3-4 days a week).

Regardless of who you are or what you do, are such high salaries good? Are they all that necessary? What does all that money buy, anyway?

An article on msn.com last month provided some answers. "What a Huge CEO Salary Would Buy You" uses examples of actual corporate leaders. For example, Barry Diller, the head of HSN (Home Shopping Network), made enough last year that his income would buy every person in Los Angeles and New York a $20 keychain digital camera that is advertised for sale on HSN.

I don't need a keychain digital camera, thank you, but I'm sure that that money could be put to far better use. When corporate America is shedding jobs, cutting back support for health care coverage, and allowing its boards to reward top executives with obscene profits, something's out of whack.

So how is our gummint helping to resolve this? You might think that a dollop of common sense would lead our "leaders" to the conclusion that perhaps the middle and working classes need some sort of economic relief to even the playing board just a little bit? Nope. Last week, despite all the problems this country faces, we had efforts by our Republican-controlled Congress to eliminate the estate tax. Fortunately, it was defeated. The Republicans like to call it the "death tax." Funny, but I don't see dead people being taxed. You can't tax a dead person. You CAN tax estates, and that's what it really is- an inheritance tax. It's not even being levied for the majority of people in this country, either: "According to the most recent statistics available from the Internal Revenue Service, 1.17 percent of people who died in 2002 left a taxable estate." If only 1.17% will be subject to the levy of the estate tax, it hardly seems fair to call it a "death tax," does it?

The majority party in our Republican-controlled Congress apparently has no shame, but when "[o]ver the past 25 years the median US family income has gone up 18 percent. For the top one percent, however, it has gone up 200 percent," something's wrong. In the meantime, tax refunds are going disproportionately to the wealthy, our jobs are going overseas, and our national socioeconomic fabric is slowly unraveling. For an interesting (and sobering) view of the gradual dismantling of the middle class, take a look at this interview with Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. She concludes by stating that yes, there is indeed a class war in this country-- not the kind of class war conservatives sneer is being pushed by Democrats and progressives, but the kind of class war the conservative majority in our Republican-controlled Congress is foisting on the rest of the nation.

I agree-- let's forget Gordon Gekko and his ilk. Let's turn to the advice of another fictional cultural icon, Howard Beale, and shout: "I'M MAD AS HELL, AND I'M NOT GONNA TAKE IT ANYMORE!"