Guest Op-Ed: Did You Know?

Are you jealous of those who have more than you? Do millionaires intimidate you? Do billionaires offend you? Do you think life would be better without these people? Do you think it is fair that some people have so much more money than others? Does the source of their wealth make a difference to you?

Some of these questions are beyond the scope of this short essay. But some can at least be addressed. Successful people, thousandaires, millionaires and billionaires have become so by several different means. Some win the lottery—does this offend you? Some inherit their wealth—is this offensive to you? Some earn their wealth, through sweat, through cleverness, through luck, and through good timing. Are the clever and the lucky undeserving in your opinion? Earned wealth is the most common path to lasting wealth. And finally, some people create their wealth. This is often the most difficult, demanding and occasionally the most

rewarding path to wealth.

First, it should be understood that no two people are alike–so why do you strip away that individuality, focusing your hatred on groups especially the successful. We have seen in every socialist takeover, the leaders have enriched themselves at the expense of those they claim to champion, so it must come down to simple jealousy.

Let’s use your concept of groups to more easily understand your jealousy. The first group are those who either won the lottery or inherited their wealth—the “Lucky Group.” The Lucky didn’t actively generate this wealth. Sometimes these people go on to do good things for the community but for this analysis let’s say this isn’t the rule but the exception. The public assessment of them is mixed at best.

The next group “The Servers” are people who provide services, respond to needs, work in the trades and hire tradesmen, run businesses of every type, doctors, lawyers, teachers, housekeepers, chefs, shopkeepers, insurance brokers and so on. The Servers, commonly referred to as the service sector provides up to 62% of the jobs in our economy.

The groups we have discussed so far, for as immense as their labor and their paychecks seem, are not creating new lasting wealth. The transfer of funds from the customer to the service provider, is just moving wealth around.

Add to this group of Servers, the government, which creates nothing tangible, and it is easy to see that without the continual input of wealth, (taxation) this would all go away.

The final group, let’s call them “the Entrepreneurs”; embody the distinguishing, unique, characteristic of the American Miracle, the freedom and opportunity to create lasting wealth; wealth that benefits the individual creator, but also has a massive positive effect on the wealth of the nation, creating jobs, funding social programs, and so on. Entrepreneurship is the only method of real, lasting, wealth creation, and offers the largest rewards.

Rep. Alexandria "You can't earn a billion dollars" Ocasio-Cortez.

There are four ways Entrepreneurs create and add wealth to our economy; Farming, Mining, Manufacturing and now what I call Value Added innovations. Value Added innovators include software developers, AI creators, and other associated intellectual products. This group is often misunderstood. Entrepreneurship is incredibly risky, intensely difficult, sometimes profitable beyond one's wildest dreams and worst of all it looks easy from the outside.

Now, to discuss some of the people who have been more successful than anyone could have imagined and some of their contributions. Do you understand that some of these, Entrepreneurs, millionaires and billionaires actually contribute to society in ways that others never will?

Henry Ford realized that his entire business model relied on paying his many, many employees a decent wage thus enabling them to be his customers and, in the process, creating the historical template for the modern American middle class.

Elon Musk is helping create our future and REAL wealth, and real JOBS. We can thank him for, modernized electric cars (Tesla), reusable rockets (SpaceX), global internet and cell phone networks (Starlink), Neuralink and the Boring Company. And he is still young.

It is being said that Musk doesn’t deserve his wealth. It’s said an hourly wage earner can never make enough to become a billionaire so he should not be entitled to that much money. The people who are saying this are very small minded and jealous. Where would we be without the Universities, the arts, the science, the libraries, and the hospitals that were funded by Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Duke and others like them? Where would all the shopkeepers, restauranteurs, florists, homebuilders, and the like be without the millions of wage earners paid by these entrepreneurs? Please tell me again why Entrepreneurs should not be rewarded for innovation and job creation. Please tell me again why they should be denied the opportunity to succeed to the fullest extent of their capabilities. Please tell me how anyone born in the “Land of the Free” has the right to limit anyone else’s potential. It is like hearing smart people, “Grown-up’s”, screaming “It’s not fair that he’s got more than me”. Those who feel this way call themselves Democratic Socialists while marching openly with and identifying with the American Communist Party.

One last caution; Totalitarian oppression, Democratic Socialists, who disdain these Entrepreneurs, wish to destroy the engine of wealth creation, and the social programs they fund through their personal beneficence in favor of taxing you and I the wage-earner to line their own pockets and sprinkle crumbs to their supporters.

— Joseph Shortino, Owego, New York