Free Enterprise and Greed
Posted by Orrin Woodward on April 10, 2009
I love this video of Phil Donahue interviewing Milton Friedman. People bandy about corporate greed, entrepreneurial greed, and excess profits like they can tell the difference between greed, profits or excess profits. It is hard enough to know your own motives, let alone assign motives to others. Entrepreneurs risk their capital and their must be a reward or no one would do it. To call profits greed is insane. In a true free enterprise system, no one is forced to surrender their hard earned money to a business. If Starbucks can sell $4 dollar coffees, who am I to say Starbucks is greedy? Didn’t the customer willingly surrender their money for the coffee. If it was freely given for the coffee; why would a third party, that wasn’t involved in the deal, have the audacity to call it greed? If someone in a true free enterprise system is making a billion dollars, they must be satisfying the customers. If not, the customers will leave and go elsewhere.
It is time people start thinking again. Labels and character attacks are a cheap way to get out of thinking. In my opinion, we need less name calling and more thinking. Hey, I have a great idea, why don’t we elect some government officials that can balance a budget and not just print money! Just because we will be dead when the bill is due, doesn’t leave us without a moral responsibility to future generations. I better watch it, someone might call me a name for thinking. If we had a balanced budget amendment, wouldn’t the political leaders have to start making tough calls – like every family in the world has to make on finances. No one has an unlimited budget, unless they are given the right to print paper money and own millions of acres of forest. This is morally wrong and must be stopped. Is anyone else concerned about the moral and fiscal responsibility gap between our elected officials and the hard working citizens? God Bless, Orrin Woodward
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A&w=425&h=344]
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Free Enterprise vs Protectionism « Orrin Woodward Life Leadership Team said
[…] Free enterprise is a system that allows competitors to freely compete for the loyalty of consumers based upon meeting customer expectations. Protectionism, in any of its various forms, limits competitors through regulations, tariffs, taxes, legal harassment etc. Here is a hilarious advertisement that captures what happens when incompetent managers attempt to limit competition through legal harassment. In free enterprise, if your competitor has a better product or service, your objective is to improve your products and methods in order to compete. This improves society as a whole and is an example of Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” at work. Attempting to destroy your competitors is an overt admission that you cannot compete and are seeking protectionist principles. There are so many great lessons taught in this priceless short video. God Bless, Orrin Woodward Share this:TwitterFacebookLinkedInStumbleUponRedditDiggEmailPrintLike this:LikeBe the first to like this post. […]