Superrich ruining capitalism in U.S.

It’s refreshing to hear, coming out of the economic summit held in Switzerland, what many of us have been thinking for years: that capitalism as practiced in America, unless contained and changed, is going to lead to the death of capitalism as we know it.

For too long, Wall Street and its support group has adhered to the philosophy of “greed is good,” i.e., as long as the very richest segment of our population continued to get richer, everything’s copacetic. Whether by shipping American jobs overseas to show your investors a better bottom line, or hiding profits in offshore accounts instead of reinvesting them stateside, or selling bad mortgages to unsuspecting recipients while you were selling credit default swaps betting against the mortagees ability to pay, or simply buying Congress’ votes to gain more tax breaks, bailouts and subsidies — well, so be it.

I have come to the conclusion that the superrich have decided to insulate themselves from the coming global economic apocalypse by building up as much cash, gold, real estate and equity as humanly possible, so when the inevitable collapse does happen, they might come out of it in halfway decent shape.

It’s a “survival of the fittest” model that most of the world rejected over 100 years ago. But their greed is going to be the very thing that will undo them. By trying to have everything, they are going to end up with nothing, as will we all. Their greed is going to kill America, while China and India pick our bones.

Pogo once said, “we have met the enemy and he is us.” He was wrong. It is them.

Tom Dillivan

Schaumburg