Greed Will Destroy This Country

I was at work today and came across an email I wasn’t quite sure if I’d taken care of so I quickly sent the appropriate information to my contact and went on about my business. A few minutes later I receive a reply, I hit the open button expecting to glance at a “thanks” or some other simple reply and move on. However the reply was much longer which was odd because what I’d written didn’t even require a response, much less a long one.

The email states that this person will soon be leaving her company, which is bad news for me, she was a good contact and always helpful for any information I might need. But the reason for her leaving was the most alarming thing about it.

Her position had been outsourced overseas and she was being let go after several years with this company. And this is a big company, most people would recognize it if they heard the name.

I hate this, I’m very angry about this as a matter of fact. Companies, in their ever increasing need to get more profit so that their execs can make even more lavish amounts of money and make the shareholders happy, will do most anything to lower their costs and increase their bottom line.

I’m disappointed in this country, and I don’t feel guilty about it or ashamed, I’m actually ashamed of people that say they’ve never been disappointed or ashamed to be American.

The cornerstone of our society is not religion or patriotism, or any of that other feel good warm and fuzzy crap, those are just distractions. The foundation of this society is capitalism, money makes this society go round. Sure you may have fuzzy little ideas otherwise, but money is it. Without it we are not what we live.

The problem with capitalism is that there is no inherent check for greed, without some balance of power the scales get tipped and in the end the entire weight slides off crashing to the floor.

Be very clear here, we are that weight.

I understand competition is tough and that capitalism buys wholly into Darwin’s survival of the fittest, but the problem is that if all these execs continue sending good jobs overseas no one here will have any money to buy their product.

CEO wages are atrocious, golden parachutes, buyout clauses, and expense accounts are sickening. There are people in this country who literally scrounge thru garbage cans looking for food while corporate execs have $10,000 garbage cans.

Something must be done to stop this rampant greed at the top levels of business, either we stop it or they stop all of us. I’m not saying I have the answers, but I’m certainly open to any ideas.