RutlandHerald.com - We Are Vermont

This letter is unclear. What, exactly, is the author advocating?

It sounds as if he is irritated with extravegant levels of private sector compensation, but then turns around to suggest that public officials be compensated at similar levels, so that they can be "reward[ed]...in counterpart". We can all be amazed at the exorbitant salaries of some Wall Street executives, particularly when they appear to have cooked the books for years to show "value creation" only to run their businesses onto the rocks. Generally, that is only the concern of the board of directors and indirectly, the business owners. Eventually, the business will (should) fail.

First, a private business is just that, private. What they choose to pay their employees is only the concern of the business owners, e.g. stockholders. If that business takes government "bailout" monies...all bets are off, and I agree the public has some say, particularly in executive compensation.

But public sector employees are employed by the taxpayers. The skills and pressures required from government civil employment are quite different from those needed at a for-profit business. Government, with the power to extract ever higher taxes or print more money, never faces the same competitive pressure of the marketplace.

Gov't can take more money from you merely because they say your home is worth more, or you are making "too much" and fairness requires they take a bigger chunk. Compare that with say, Coca Cola charging for a soda based on how much money you earn or how big a house you live in. For person A, it's 75 cents, for person B, it's $5. Not going to happen. You have the freedom to forego the soda. Not so, your taxes.

Money-making, or wealth accumulation, has always been, and by human nature always will be, the driving wheel behind the economy. That hasn't beeen fundamentally changed, merely because government and certain select major industries have created bizarre hybrid entities, in order to prop up some incredibly bad risk assessment and poorly thought-out public policy. No single company is "too big to fail", in the true free market economy. That our federal government has chosen to jump in and rescue their private-sector accomplices just proves that we were not a free-market. Government does not, in and of itself, create the economy. But it can influence it, generally in a negative manner, since it is like a tumor living off of the wealth generated by true productive economic activity.

Someday, some historian/economist will trace all the shady deals, strong-arm bailouts, threats, cash-grubbing, vote-stealing, political contributions, and sleazy quid pro quo that occurred in order to avert the unavoidable economic dislocation, and our descendents will be amazed at the political corruption we tolerated, and the willing cooperation by poorly run big businesses.

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