Sunday, November 3, 2013

On Whether Having Multiple Billionaires in a Society is Desirable or Not

In and of itself it's a meaningless question. You would also have to known, in my opinion, a) the overall size of the economy, b) the growth rate, c) the opportunity structure, d) the regulatory climate, e) the amount of crony capitalism involved, f) the power of the country's central bank g) the legality of the earnings (we certainly don't want a country that's loaded with Bernie Madoffs), and h) what the people do with the money (do they waste it on politics or are they philanthropic?). I mean, I know that the left de facto wants me to say that billionaires are evil and all but I would simply point out that Cuba, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia don't have any billionaires and do we really want to emulate them?............................................................................P.S. That, and I would also ask them to look at how the likes of Annenberg (50 million alone to the United Negro College Fund), Melon (The National frigging Gallery of Art, for God's sake), Carnegie, and the two Rockefellers spent THEIR money and compare it to how the government for the past 80 years (starting with Hoover and right on up to Bush and Obama) or so has been spending OUR money and then decide.

4 comments:

BB-Idaho said...

IMO, it is desirable if you are a billionaire. It is another category
we are aworld leader in.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Thankfully, the economy isn't a zero-sum game.

Les Carpenter said...

I love billionaires. If they are actually job creators, provide a living wage and help grow the middle class, provide decent company sponsored (subsidized) health insurance, and take zero government help.

There's more but this is enough for one sitting.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Now that's the Les that I remember.