Progressives vs. CEOs

Those who tend view government as the solution rather than the problem, – those who call themselves liberals, socialists, or progressives – claim we are experiencing far greater economic exploitation and suffering than at any time since the advent of progressivism under Woodrow Wilson.

Modern progressives tend to blame national and global economic problems on greed – especially the greed of CEOs. However, we've always had greed. More specifically, our genetic predisposition towards greed is no different than at any other time in recorded history. So greed explains nothing.

For every problem, there is always an explanation that is simple, and obvious – and wrong.

Clearly, greed is not the problem. We've always had greed, so what's different today (assuming things really are worse than before)?

Let's first consider whether CEOs are really making too much money.

If socialists are correct, and a CEO is way overcompensated because he is really just "one guy who barely contributes to an organization," then why would the owners (the major stockholders) pay the CEO so much if he is not really increasing the value of their stock by more than they are paying him? Why wouldn't they just fire him and hire someone who would do it for less. Why wouldn't they have just hired someone who would work for less in the first place, and if no one would do it for less, then why have a CEO at all (if he barely contributes)?

For every problem, there is always an explanation that is simple, and obvious – and wrong.

Clearly, CEOs are not overpaid (unless there is a variable we are not considering). Perhaps the variable we are not considering is government itself.

Maybe CEOs are worth so much to a company because they can get so many advantages from government over their main competitors, and maybe the most valuable CEOs can even get their friends in government to thwart potential new competitors. Maybe such crony capitalists are able to outcompete honest capitalists with some help from their friends in government. Maybe the CEOs we see today are mostly the creation of government. Maybe if they weren't installed directly by government, then they were chosen over competing and more honest CEOs because of perverse incentives created by government.

Now let's look at the progressive solution.

The well known progressive solution to greedy CEOs (and just about everything) is for government to take at least 90% of the wealth from the rich and for the government to then directly provide everyone with food, employment, college education, top health care, larger payments to the unemployed, disabled, retired, and strikers; more benefits to women and racial minorities, more power to unions, more government control over the education of our children, and more control over our access to "unhealthy" information, food, energy, etc. The solution is trillions of dollars of taxes and spending. Perhaps the most favorite progressivist solution is regulation of business – millions of pages of regulation.

Now let's consider what has changed since the 1960's, which was the most progressive decade and thus the last good decade according to progressives. Let’s first consider the two non progressive changes: lower taxes and lower union membership.

Taxes are lower today, but tax revenues actually went up after tax cuts, so lower taxes didn't hurt anyone, and in fact lower taxes must have helped the economy if a lower tax rate yielded larger tax revenues to the government.

Union membership is lower today, but not as a result of legislation or any other anti-union efforts. In fact, until 2008, unions continued to be more successful in the form of better contracts and new legal advantages. For example, some states, like my home state of Kentucky, required all state contracts to go to unionized companies. That’s a dirty bit of cheatin, but of course, it’s now obvious that unions were too successful – killing off the companies they exploited and thus reducing union membership. Unions most recently killed GM, until Obama gave GM – or more specifically, GM’s union – a bailout, paid for by robbing GM investors and the tax paying public. I will never buy another GM product – ever.

The only other things that changed are that we have new progressive policies and that existing progressive policies have been in place longer and have grown larger – much larger.

Progressives programs that existed in the 60’s a and have continued to grow are: the department of defense, BATF, government housing, gun control, Fannie Mae, the postal service, the federal reserve, thousands of pages of regulations, the IRS, Medicare, the SEC, and Social Security.

We also have new progressive policies such as welfare, OSHA, Medicaid, the CRA, affirmative action, political correctness, sexual harassment, Title IX, Sarbanes Oxley, the department of energy, the department of education, and millions of pages of new regulations.

In addition to all of the new and growing progressive programs, consider that the largest progressive program is a Ponzi scheme. That's right. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme.

Now consider that everything has been going pretty well until 2008 – almost as if a Ponzi scheme is collapsing.

The progressives claim we desperately need their programs to save us from greed, but when we abandon simple minded explanations like greed, and look deeper, we see that it is in fact the progressive programs themselves that have created the problems we face today.

Progressivism is a problem masquerading as it's own cure.
Government is a problem masquerading as it's own cure.
Progressivism is the con of the century.

Progressives know that the people like getting free stuff from the government, so progressives wonder why even poor people are often afraid to vote for progressives, but we know why. Whereas, progressives think they know about greed – and … well … everything, we the people know about progressives.

We have listed a sampling of progressive policies known to the people, but we left out the one policy (a strategy really) that liberals, progressives, and socialists like most. We left out a progressive strategy that we have all experienced first hand.

We must shine a light on the one thing that Progressives know with more certainty than how they know that greed is the cause of all of our problems. We must expose the fact that progressives know that anyone who disagrees with them is a racist.

Progressives also know there is a racist under every rock and behind every tree, which is why the people know that progressives are the purveyors of the New Hate.

We the people are smarter than progressives think we are.