Barney Frank is the new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, which makes him one of the most poweful members of Congress when it comes to economic policy. And he says this:
Frank was not specific on every proposal, but he said he intends to hold hearings into income disparity and what the government can do about it. He is also proposing a "grand bargain" that will tie trade bills, regulatory relief and other business-friendly legislation to mandates on increased wages, union empowerment and health care coverage.
"Government doesn't have to interfere with the free enterprise system, but we can work along with it to reduce inequality," Frank said.
He wants to find a way to coerce companies to increase wages, make union membership easier and spend more on health care, and he thinks that is not intefering with free enterprise? Lord almighty. Like too many in his party, Frank is obsessed with "inequality," which of course requires more and more government to redistribute the wealth. What abysmal ignorance and insufferable arrogance.
Comments
Leo, in a perfect world I'd agree with you whole-heartedly, but history demonstrates that without "firm encouragement," the greedy, the unethical, the immoral and the violent often find refuge in American corporate management systems. They give it a bad name, and create sentiment for regulatory stuff like this, but nevertheless, there they are until somebody eventually has the sense to fire their butts for the sake of the company's reputation.
We probably have two parties precisely for reasons like this. Unions only took hold because without them, the CEO's hired brutes often bore down on picketers with clubs in their hands. America is better than that. Too bad some CEOs insist on disagreeing.
It's a slow night so let me add a short addendum here.
I respect those people who have faith that their party's ideology is sufficiently robust to successfully deal with problems like the ones I brought up -- intimidation and abuse of working Americans, in this case.
But I also believe it is always worthwhile, and invariably realistic, to warn the idealists (if that is what they/we are) that human shortcomings are a factor in any and every theoretical system -- and we are, to understate the matter wildly, not all saints.
Any ideology that forgets to account for the near-infinite destructive power of human selfishness, and our species' seemingly unlimited appetite to abuse others of our kind if given free reign (witness the enigma of Hitler's Germany) just isn't real-world-ready until safeguards against predictable human evil are built into the machinery.
I don't think any useful ideology exists which does not account for and provide effective checks against our human tendency to abuse power and to abuse people under our influence for selfish reasons.
Law is written to fill the void left by our failings.
isn't Frank advocating socialism by doing this.
Sure there are a lot of greedy CEO's that make things bad. But I can say the same thing about the demands of a lot of unions too.
I think the less intervention done to the free market system is the better course of action.