Yesterday, some anti-American fool named Abdul El-Sayed was given an unworthy platform to spout his bile on Fox News. In addition to the expected mind-numbing disinformation, this tidbit caught my attention — he said, “billionaires make money off their money.”
What an idiot to spew such a rehearsed response that further proves his communist bona fides, thereby repulsing viewers he was trying to court (why else go on Fox?).
He was countering the interviewer’s (someone named Jesse Watters, who’s not too bad as far as talking heads go…) proposal that the wealthy be obliged to enjoy the fruits of their own labor. I’ve only seen excerpts, so I’m unsure if Watters had the wherewithal or time to follow up. Here goes my spiel…
First, most of America’s billionaires are self-made. Unlike the government, which only redistributes wealth, billionaires make societal wealth.
Second, few of our rich entrepreneurs actually fully enjoy the fruits of their labor (or compounding money) by retiring in luxury. Of course they are surrounded by opulence, but many continue to work very hard. And not just the uber-wealthy like Elon Musk, who works harder than anyone. Here’re a few examples of business owners who have not only sacrificed vacations to build their businesses, but continue to work hard long past retirement.
Taxing them to the hilt would not only dampen their incentive to grow wealth for themselves, but society at large. Those are the kind of industrious people who may have given someone a job to work through college, for example. Or maybe provided some career opportunities to others. And provided tax revenues to bloated governments.
How dare those job creators make money off money? How dare they benefit from capital returns and investments, even after working their fingers to the bone and taking great risks?
Read more The Floyd overdose myth
Implied in El-Sayed’s communist contortions is the notion that, at some point, an entrepreneur has made enough money. Apparently, he trusts a pin-headed central planning bureaucrat to confiscate the “excess” money, then spread it around to ensure government dependence rather than individual brilliance.
Talk about closed-mindedness, and complete disregard toward the utter human misery inherent in communism. I know commies always say “it will be different this time,” but never explain how human nature will comport to their prescriptions. How can it be different when human spirits soar in variations of a vibrant free-market system, but become despondent in dour communist dystopia? Communism is inhuman, so it will never “be different this time.” Even a couple of thousand years ago the poet Virgil observed that “Fortune resides with him who dares.” Human nature hasn’t changed much — it still does.
More fundamentally, one may reasonably conjecture that El-Sayed would likely cause a worldwide depression by uprooting the entire international financial system, wherein money often makes money from money. One presumes he is also opposed to the democratization of investing, such as Trump Accounts. After all, millions of children will benefit from the marvelous concept of compound interest.
For whatever reason, El-Sayed is so resentful of American exceptionalism that he proposes peculiar pecuniary plans. Rather then persecute those who create whole new industries, products, and jobs, he should take a page out of Marco Rubio’s book. His parents worked so-called “menial” jobs, but didn’t imbue Marco with resentment toward the well-heeled. Indeed, the fine public servant once conceded that ,“I have a debt to America that I will never be able to repay.”
At least Rubio is trying, which is more than can be said of anti-wealth and anti-American El-Sayed.
Read more Now is the time to stand against antisemitism
Image generated by ChatGPT.