I on the World

In case anyone was wondering why this country is decaying from the inside out, the answer is in a system that sounds grand in the ideal, but doesn’t work very well in the reality.  The reason is simple.  It’s called greed.

Capitalism typically refers to an economic and social system of supply and demand based on private ownership of capital.  It was supposed to give people impetus to achieve while benefiting society by creating jobs and products and services.  However, by using supply and demand to their advantage, unscrupulous capitalists can cut the supply of a product, even if it’s urgent, and become very rich indeed from taking advantage of people’s needs.

One of the best examples of this?  Today’s health insurance industry, an unprecedented success story that has made a very small part of society very rich while leaving the rest of us out in the cold.  How does it happen?  It’s not that hard to follow.  The industry spends millions of dollars every year buying greedy members of Congress who are supposed to be working for you, protecting you, looking out for your best interests, but instead sell themselves to the highest bidders.  In this instance, these greedy members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, go about making sure that the health insurance industry keeps its Sherman Antitrust Act exemption, and thwarting every effort to reform health care in any way that might impact the industry’s profits.

With much of Congress bought and paid for, by one industry or another, one doesn’t have to wonder why ninety-five percent of the nation’s wealth is in the hands of one percent of the nation’s population.

In a nutshell, today’s capitalism is a pretty neat reverse Robin Hood that takes from the poor and gives to the rich.