I agree with Jim Lieb of Palmer (Letter, March 17) that hardworking Americans who have better ideas and are more innovative than most of us deserve to gain wealth, even to the point of becoming billionaires. At the same time, I recognize that those billionaires will have had to depend on hiring us commoners as workers, and they will also have had to depend on the nation’s infrastructure, which is to say that they did not exactly pull themselves up by their bootstraps alone.
Money talks and money buys power in the United States. Once some people become wealthy, they are able to rent politicians to pass legislation like tax laws that are more favorable to them than to us commoners. Some — too many — distort the theoretical competition of capitalism by using their power to become monopolistic. Some of the same make efforts to pay their workers as little as they can get by with. Too many use their wealth to hire expensive lobbyists and use lawsuits or the threat of lawsuits to fend off those who would challenge their power.
It is no secret that some can and do hide money offshore or set up an office in a foreign country to escape paying U.S. taxes. Some hire accountants with very sharp pencils and challenge society to do anything about it.
We might ask why Medicare is not able to use its would-be buying power to bring down the cost of medications. Is it because the wealthy corporations can block that competition? We are one of the wealthiest developed nations, but we have one of the worst records of income inequality. We should ask why; maybe a rising tide does not lift all boats after all.
My respects to the honest wealthy individuals and honest corporations who do recognize and act on something called the common good.
— John Jensen
Anchorage
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