To the Editor:
I agreed with your editorial headline “Gimme some greed,” over Conversations from Birdland on Tuesday, Nov. 18, 2010, but I did not think much of the conversation that followed.  I thought I might add my thoughts to the conversation.
The United States has become not only the richest per capita nation in the world and also the most caring.  It all came about from our creativity, which helped to produced our wealth.  Even with our temporary downturn, our gross domestic product exceeds any other country in the world. Wealth and creativity are intertwined.
Facebook, would still be a college plaything, without someone willing to take a long shot chance. Their’s paid off.  Consider, where the world would be, without the product and services that have been developed here in the last 30 years, and it continues exponentially.
Self interest is in mans’ nature. Originally, that is how we survived and grew. We now, after we have provided for ourselves, and motivated by self interest, develop new enterprises to provide products and services for others. We make money, sometimes to support ourselves and our family. Sometimes, we make lots and lots of it.  When we have satisfied our own needs, we invest the surplus in new ideas or in the stock and bond markets in old ideas, which makes more money, which is invested, and the process is repeated. Therefore, it is not “obvious that in the hands of the few, there is less to go into the hands of the many”; as Mr. Weathington would have it.
The history of our country proves it.  It is not that wealth creates the phenomenon that breeds a “class” mentality, it is the political message given out on tax issues and anti Republican Presidential Candidates.  Our community proves it. We have wide disparities of wealth in this community, but I have yet to hear or feel a “class mentality” here, other than from this “Conservation”.
The Phoenicians, Chinese, Venetians, in ancient times, the Dutch and English, in more modern times, all found great success in trade, each building on the labor of others; as did  the United States, a country that covered a continent, and imported cheap labor from the world.
The dot.com world would not have been created, without the widget production from, originally Singapore and Japan and, later all Asia, creating wealth for all.
Management of relative wealth has always been sticky, recently, it has been acerbated by the fall, in the value of the dollar. Millionaires of yesterday are now billionaires. It’s not that they have more wealth. Like democracy, individual market value, is not perfect, but it is the best we have found. It’s Interesting, that we seem to ignore movie and sports stars, who make lots of money, but heads of companies, we think must be cheating us in some way.
Sorry, but the US Supreme Court did not “endorse the right for the rich to spend unlimited amounts of money on election contributions”. Candidate contribution restrictions, by individuals, continue to apply.
“Conservatives are still beating the drum that lowering taxes will grow the economy and lower the national debt” because it works. We need to cut spending, but only more growth in revenue will get us back on track. It worked for Kennedy, Reagan and George W. Bush. Look what government “stimulus” spending has done, the deficit has moved from billions to trillions, and will continue higher, with the drop in the value of the dollar.
“And finally”, the best thing we can do for the poor is get the economy moving again We can do this by lowering taxes and letting the people decide how to spend and invest their own money.
— Jack Black