The thing is, in a free market, the process of becoming rich benefits society. Because in a free market you have to create a product or innovation that betters society.
The only rich people you should despise are the ones who become rich off the government. The people who lobby to restrict competition by having politicians pass regulations that make it harder to compete or by granting themselves subsidies or government ensured loans. Those are the disgusting rich people. And it is because of the government that they get rich. Look at Washington DC. It is the Richest area in the country because all the wealthy bureaucrats, lobbyists and politicians consolidate there to get more laws passed that fill their pockets with your money.
All these things the government does have unintended consequences. Look at minimum wage, it has only shipped jobs overseas. Why is it that some businesses pay above minimum wage? You would think that if it wasn’t for minimum wage everybody would make next to nothing, so why is it that even with a minimum wage many employers pay above minimum wage? Because a wage is the price of your labor and if you are highly skilled your labor is worth more. There is competition for labor and if somebody is highly skilled companies will offer higher salaries and to entice them. All minimum wage did was destroy opportunities for people right out of high school or people new to the workforce who aren’t as skilled. Minimum wage jobs are launching pads for your career. That is where you develop skills and experience that can help you to get better jobs. When the government imposed minimum wages it basically banned low skilled workers from getting jobs.
As far as the great depression, that is a problem the Federal Reserve created. So once again, the government creates a problem and then the solution makes the problem worse. It is interesting to note that from 1921 -1929 the money supply increased 61.8%. Where do you think most of that money went? It went into the stock market and was used to bid up stock prices and create the roaring 20s, which inevitably led to the Great Depression once the bubble burst.
The idea that the Federal Government’s job programs actually helped the economy is debatable. I personally believe that the government’s involvement prolonged the depression.
Look at the 1920-1921 depression and the Great Depression. They were both started by inflationary booms. What is the main difference? In 1921 the Federal Reserve and the government did the exact opposite of what Statist Keynesian economists recommend. The Fed Raised interest rates to historic highs and the Government didn’t get involved in the economy and we actually reduced government spending by 65% in one year. Horrible? Well, the depression of 1920-1921 didn’t even last a year.
In 1929 all the Keynesian prescriptions were used. And Herbert Hoover WAS NOT the lassez faire president people make him out to be. He incurred large deficits and supported large spending projects on things like the Hoover Dam. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC) was established under hoover and it injected 1 billion dollars into the banks that made bad loans, and that was back when a billion dollars actually meant something…
Near the end of Hoover’s presidency he pushed taxes on the top income rate to 63% in 1933. That is probably why 1933 is considered the worst year in US economic history. And even with those 63% tax hikes on those “evil” rich people, the revenue only went up 3.8%.
FDR continued the policy and even with all his socialist programs we never saw a full recovery of the stock market until 1954, and that was partially because the dollar lost a good portion of its value. In short, the government’s actions during the great Depression were EPIC FAILURES. It’s amazing how, when we did nothing during the depression of 1920-21 the economy immediately got better, meanwhile when we do all the worthless government programs after the collapse of 1929, the economy didn’t recover until 1941. And here, I learn in school that the great depression ended because of FDR’s spending, even though it lasted 13 years longer than the 1920-21 recession where we did nothing… It’s Bunk. FDR and Hoover didn’t help end the depression, they prolonged it. And it is questionable whether the economy was actually better during 1941. Yeah the GDP was back up, but why? Because we were producing loads of tanks and weapons that were useless to American citizens. You can’t use tanks or bombers… So from 1941-1945 Americans were living under wartime austerity and rationing for the war and all our best quality workers were out fighting in Europe and in the Pacific. Hardly prosperity.
And after the war all the Keynesian economists said the economy would implode if we cut government spending. They said the economy would go into another HUGE depression when the millions of our soldiers returned back to America.
Well we cut spending anyway, and millions of troops came back home. What happened? Prosperity. The economy thrived and grew faster. So once again the Keynesian were dead wrong. We didn’t have a depression, we had strong economic growth.