Wealth vs Wealth

It has been said over and over again that America is the richest nation ever. And I believe that is true. Great wealth so far has accumulated where? In the hands of individuals, or the lives of every one of America’s citizens?

That is not easily answered. Well, maybe a little easier these days after governments were required to value their assets for accounting reasons. You see, if there is an asset (a bridge, roadway, sewer pumping station, whatever) those are items that will need to be replaced at some time or other, and their depreciation needs to be accounted for as well as the future obligation to spend dollars to replace or rehabilitate those very same assets. You see the principle involved, here, don’t you?

There is value accumulated in the name of the American people. Most of us don’t think much about it until some of the assets don’t function properly and need to be repaired. Pot holes, crumbling bridge, dam near collapse. Now I know you see the point clearly!

Who paid for these ‘assets’? We all did. You and I; and companies and businesses to be sure. But we are all taxpayers and we paid for the items whether from use taxes, fees and fares, tolls and property taxes, sales taxes or income taxes. One way or the other we paid to make these things come into being. So in a very real sense we own them all.

What do we do with these assets? Why,…we use them: to live, to accomplish our daily routines, to earn a living, to ‘do’ commerce. These assets are of value in many ways. Utility value to be sure, but also investment for quality of life, as well as capital goods that actually help create business capital and wealth from net income from business operations.

We must have bridges so school buses can get kids to schools. Both the bus and the school are public assets as well. The bus is a capital good which a company earned profit from in the building and selling of it. Same with the school; a construction company built the school and made a profit, hired a lot of skilled labor and paid their wages to build the school. And maintaining the school is yet another business enterprise. Running the school for educational purposes is a public cost, of course, but it is an investment enterprise in the worth and ability of our younger generation so they may take on our national interests eventually and do so with smarts and savvy so it might advance in later years. And earn them a good income and quality of life as well!

The roadways allow employees to get to work on time and safely. Traffic signals are a component of this function as well. Each and every item is a public asset, and each earned someone cash to make and sell and the taxpayer to pay for. Enterprise. It exists everywhere we look and many other places we don’t even think of looking.

Yet there are those who espouse that wealth getting should be left to the entrepreneur. That the risk taker should earn and keep the spoils of his efforts. Trouble is, whose risk is being taken? The customer? The taxpayers at large? The business person? Totally? Really? You mean these assets we have talked about are ghosts that wouldn’t be there unless a private business didn’t take the risk to make them?

I don’t think so. Having been in a government position, I remember contract negotiations wherein the specifications of the jobs and equipment were well spelled out, by both the government entity and the business partner. That was to protect both sides of the deal. They knew what to expect. And what contingencies might arise that would imperil the project. But cost set asides were developed to protect both parties so the project had a good prospect of completion. Whose risk are we trying to inventory here?

It seems to me that business and government do a good job of protecting each other. Always have. Even in military business lines; oh Hell! Especially in military business lines. My father spent most of his career in that industry and how it worked was pretty transparent. Government and industry in those instances were very much a partnership. That means the public took on the risk. 100% of it.

Education. The public takes on that risk, too. We pay for building the institutions that educate and prepare professional personnel to teach, to doctor, to lawyer, to engineer, to administer businesses, ad infinitum. You know we do. And we have the gall to ask the student to pay tuition for all of this while most of it benefits the businesses and institutions and nation at large? Oh we need to get the student to take on some of the risk of his/her decision to study what they might. But in the long run their work and risk benefits all of us.

Healthcare. This is not a private enterprise deal. Hospitals are non-profit but high revenue businesses. They pay little taxes because they serve the public good. Yet many people make enormous incomes administering the hospitals, designing and building them, staffing them and all the rest. Doctors are not impoverished although their prospects are lower today than in many a decade! The insurance companies continue to make tons of money. Finance markets continue to earn huge profits on this industry. But the risk? That’s taken on by the taxpayer. At all levels: federal, state and local. Regarding the last item, how much public expense do you really think municipalities have to eat in the name of supporting hospitals? Non profits don’t pay property taxes like the rest of us. They sometimes make goodwill donations for fire and police protection. They pay for water and sewer that is metered as a utility. But the rest of the government support is left high and dry in most cases. Research that little fact and you may be surprised!

What is my point in this posting? Simply this:

Wealth is in all of our hands whether we realize it or not. It does not accrue to private hands except in those cases where ownership rights allows such wealth to accumulate. That is right and OK; to a point. But controlling all wealth based on that tenet is not correct. We are all risk takers.

           

The late and great US Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis had this to say on this very subject:

“We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

Justice Brandeis served on the court from 1916 to 1939 and has long been considered one of the greatest jurists of our national history. He sensed the danger in unrestricted wealth control and power. Just like President Dwight Eisenhower warned us back in the 1950’s: Beware the Military/Industrial Complex; they are wanton in their seeking of power and wealth!

In this election of 2012 please remember this as you vote. Do we want private wealthy citizens to own our government? Or large industries to lay ownership claims on our citizens. That is what is happening.

I’d much rather that you and I as voting citizens have those rights of ownership. After all, we are the risk takers in the final analysis, and we are the beneficiaries of those risks taken. In the name of all of us, do not let the few rich take what  belongs to each of us.

October 18, 2012