OUT TO LUNCH

I went to lunch with a good friend yesterday and the subject turned to AIG and the other miscreants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

My friend was angry because the CEOs of these outfits made so much money.

"Nobody," he maintained, "is worth more than a million dollars."

Well, I live in The United States of America, land of the used to be free and home of the once brave.

It is my humble, but correct, opinion, that anybody should be able to earn whatever he/she wants to earn without governmental encumbrances AS LONG AS THEY DO IT LEGALLY.

But you can't be rich without hurting other people, right?

Wrong.

Witness Truett Cathy.

"Who?" I hear you asking.

Truett Cathy founded Chick-Fil-A in 1960. His son, Dan, is CEO today.

Chick-Fil-A does an annual business of over $2.9 billion...and they do it in only six days per week, since they are closed on Sundays to allow their employees a day of worship or family time.

They have enjoyed 41 years of continuous sales growth.

One of their passions is their people...not exploiting them, providing for them.

Chick-Fil-A provides scholarships for their "team-members," character building classes for children, an extensive foster care program and are very involved in community events.

I am not here to tout Chick-Fil-A...I like their food, but then I like ALL food.

My point is, it is neither immoral nor impossible to make as much money as you want to and to do it right.

Contrary to popular belief, it is not necessary to cheat, steal, lie and mistreat people to become wealthy in this country. It is easier, for a season, but not necessary.

In fact, it is likely that if you cheat, steal, lie and mistreat people to rise in the ranks of industry, sooner or later it will come back to bite you where you don't want to be bitten.

How about Franklin Raines and Daniel Mudd, former leaders at Fannie Mae? Consider David Kellerman and David Moffett of Freddie Mac (Kellerman committed suicide).

How would like to be like Edward Liddy, former head of AIG?

Worst of all, how would you like to be like Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, Chris Dodd, Harry Reid, et. al., who think nothing of deliberately and blatantly stealing from ALL Americans by taking their hard earned money and squandering it daily?

"Well, ALL politicians are dishonest," you object.

Oh?

I've never seen any evidence that Connie Mack is dishonest. Milk toast, yes, dishonest, no.

(I plan to vote him out of office - or at least do my part - because of his lack of fortitude, but I see no evidence of dishonesty...yet.)

But the fact each of these makes money causes me no concern whatever.

I do not believe that Truett and Dan Cathy are "winners of life's lottery," or that they got where they are by ill gotten gain.

They worked their ever-lovin'-blue-eyed posteriors off to achieve their success, and helped tens-of-thousands along the way.

Furthermore, I don't think I (or you) have any right whatsoever, by any stretch of anybody's imagination, to tell company owners or corporate stockholders what they should pay their people.

The truth is, if you were willing to do what it takes to get to their positions of leadership by the honest route: get educated in the field; work long hard hours daily; get better at your job every day; live up to your potential; sacrifice "fun" once in a while and all the other stuff, you could be there, too.

Of course you could choose to get there by the political, "who you know" and "whose anatomical parts you kiss" route, too.

Then you would always have the likes of Frank Raines or David Kellerman in the back of your mind, figuring how to scam the system.

I'll becha ol' Frank and David never thought their methods would come back to haunt them.

If you are dishonest, hurt people and mess up like the afore-mentioned group, corporate and political, you belong in jail.

Otherwise, go ahead. Make all you want or need to make.

In a truly capitalistic system (the only system in which ANYBODY can get ahead with enough effort), who cares how much you make?

If I want to, I can do it too!