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Two very different ways to get ahead

Source: National Action Network website
In a society based on centralized control (leftist, socialist, communist, whatever), there is really only one way to get ahead. You must figure out who has political power, befriend them, and do favors for them. There is no reason for you to help the common man, so you focus on those in power. Everything is in one pie, and if you want a piece of that pie, you must serve those above you.
In a free society, you get ahead by serving those below you. Figure out what people want, then figure out how to give it to them. Lots of people. If you can serve more people, and serve them better, then you’ll gain more wealth and influence. It’s the opposite of leftist societies – political leaders can hurt your business through regulation & taxes, etc., but they really can’t help you. Not much. So you serve everybody except them. Your only interest is in improving the life of the common man, because that’s how you get rich.
There are a lot of reasons that leftist governments make life worse for everybody in their country except for the politically well-connected. But this is a big one. The smartest and most ambitious people spend all their time trying to figure out how to make life better for political leaders, instead of spending all their time trying to figure out how to make life better for everybody else. And guess what happens? Life gets better for political leaders, but life gets worse for everybody else. Imagine that.

Source: CA.gov.com
When Democrats talk about using government to make people rich, most people just sort of roll their eyes. But it gives me the creeps.
What if Democrats really believe in that sort of thing? Perhaps they’re stupid or ignorant. But what if they’re not? What if they really want a world where the population suffers so the politically connected can live well?
That’s simply evil. I don’t use that word much. But I can’t think of another way to describe leftist government systems.
About half of the voters in the last election voted Democrat. I hope they’re stupid or ignorant.
I really do.
Published in General
No one is compelled to suck up. You don’t like the boss? Get a new job. Start a business and become your own boss, and
reward employees for sucking up to youfind out for yourself what happens if you can’t make payroll this week.Corolla is really sharp and he is giving out great advice.
My favorite thing he said is the local government out in California doesn’t care about anybody that doesn’t have a checking account. If you have a checking account, they are going to try to get money from you. If you don’t have a checking account, they leave you alone. It’s insane. He’s told so many crazy stories about the regulation of building contracting. Crazy.
And being a lawyer.
I am a lawyer.
The professional life of most lawyers is either cleaning up messes when things go wrong (litigation; often because people have behaved badly), or trying to anticipate where things might go wrong and preparing for the possibility that people will behave badly (detailed contract drafting, counseling and advising, etc.)
In both cases (cleaning up messes, and trying to anticipate minimize future messes) we lawyers see mostly things that go wrong. Being cynical or jaded is an occupational hazard.
I watch videos about the business of some different industries that are very different from the industries in which I have worked, to learn more about how the economy works. One category I watch is about the long-haul trucking industry, mostly by truck drivers who range from employees to independent owner-operators.
Many trucking companies have terrible reputations on how they treat their drivers. Turnover is high.
One driver got tired of being treated badly by trucking companies and decided to start her own trucking company that would treat drivers better. The company lasted less than two years. She (the owner) was very disappointed at how, despite her efforts to be “driver-focused,” so many drivers were dishonest with her, and how much they abused the company equipment. It became too hard for her to make money.
One of the owner-operators (a married couple who both drive) had a short-lived experience running a fleet with contract drivers. They also found many of the contract drivers were dishonest and abused their equipment.
Yet another who is an employee documents a schedule I would find intolerable, but he loves it. He has figured out how to work with the company’s systems to get the company what it wants, and to maximize what he the driver wants.
Dishonesty and abuse have been in human nature for a very long time. In a free economy that dishonesty and abuse can be manifest all over – up, down, and sideways.
My “sideways” comment reminded me that in my professional life. Abuse and dishonesty do not just go up and down the employer – employee hierarchy. They also infect transactions among peers.
As noted above I am a lawyer. I practice in business, and have always done preventative law – trying to anticipate and head off problems. Often by ensuring that business contracts are clearly written so all parties understand their obligations and what they should expect, to minimize the likelihood of a dispute arising later.
On a few occasions a business executive client would tell me that he didn’t trust the other party -that he was a lying scum who cheats everybody – and so my client wanted me to write an “ironclad” guarantee into the contract. I would tell him no matter how “ironclad” the contract, it is not going to turn a dishonest person into an honest person. If my client didn’t trust the other party, he was probably better off skipping that business transaction.
Ah, but the marketing department is supposed to be composed of uber-capitalists. Give the people what they want. Lately, they seem to have devolved into telling the people what they want, and as Lucasfilm execs can tell you after their extended box office bombing campaign, that ain’t easy.
Capitalists can fail, too, especially through being stupid. That didn’t make them not capitalists.
Very few people’s bosses are directly in control of the finances. Only the top person/people is/are. Even if their boss – who may have several layers of bosses above him/her – is totally stupid, it may take a long time, if ever, for that to seriously affect the bottom line and the making of payroll. By which time that boss may have moved on to damage some other company, and their responsibility at the previous company may go unnoticed.
Right, and physicians don’t see a lot of healthy people.
I didn’t say it was competent marketing. Pretty sure no one has.
To me, Capitalism just represents the normal trading or bartering that people do with each other when they are not constrained by some government entity. It doesn’t matter if you are in a Stone-Age Society or a millionaire’s paradise.
What Jerry completely ignores (or is not aware of) is that the lying, stealing, cheating, manipulation etc… is ten times worse in Communist, Socialist, and Dictatorship societies than in capitalist societies. Perhaps he is unfamiliar with what life is like in North Korea, China, Russia, Sudan, Syria, Cuba, etc…..
This last line is my point, basically – capitalism, communism, Jedi-ism, I don’t give a crap. You can’t “ism” out human nature, no matter how brutally you try, and baby, they didn’t just try.
But the free market, transparent transactions, will lead to both or multiple parties gaining. Not in every case, but most people or companies don’t buy something they don’t value. The funny thing is, having worked at a non-profit for 5 years (a college), I saw the same idiotic human nature, some really ugly and selfish sides, and they’re the same clowns who seem to carry an air of superiority about them through the magical nature of working in a monopolistic industry.
But they all started doing it at the same time. “If you don’t buy this, you are a homophobic, sexist racist bigot.”
At which point, the market wanders off to watch a football game.
BINGO
We don’t even come close to Ayn Rand style capitalism, starting with all of the Fed interference.
For what it’s worth I’m getting really skeptical of fractional reserve banking, and our ability to run it.
Great advice Mr. Tabby. My father, may he rest in peace, used to advise me. “Son, sometimes the best business you can do is the business you choose not to do.”