Jack Swipeout

The idea of the American Dream has fueled the growth of the country. My ancestors came here first on a boat as Pilgrims seeking religious and economic self-determination. Later ancestors negotiated the purchase of land from native people in Massachusetts. Only six generations ago my ancestors homesteaded land in Michigan as farms. Three generations ago my great grandfather owned a bank. The bank is gone in the run up to the great banking collapse of the 1920s. I do not know if any distant cousins live on the farms. Probably not. Pursuing the American dream, people left the farms to move to the cities to work in industry. The idea was that if you worked hard and deserved it, the good life would come. Things did not work out quite that way, but reforms in the 1920s made things better Until the Great Depression wrecked it all. Then following World War II, things got better again. People of all races and ethnicities moved north to work in the plants where unions secured good wages and bene...

Milton Friedman is not the Devil, but he is a high ranking demon. Friedman sold the world on the idea that companies have one purpose to make profit. Today, shareholders can sue a company and its leadership if it does something to hurt profits. This single focus requires companies to take any action that increases profit regardless of the actions. It does not matter that employees are hurt. It does not matter that the environment is hurt. It does not matter that communities are hurt. It does not matter that customers are hurt. Profit in the short term is how score is kept, meaning there is no interest in the long term. The system is designed to achieve the outcomes that it is designed to produce. A company can not forgo profits to take care of employees to generate loyalty. The pursuit of profit is a house fire in society that destroys opportunity and individual self-determination. It means winning at all costs. Yet it alone is not the root of all evil, though Chaucer warned us that th...