Thursday, January 12, 2012

More on Vulture Capitalism

You raise some interesting questions in the tradition of "Uncle Miltie," but the memory of what Carl Icahn did to TWA and by extension to the St. Louis metropolitan region gives me the creeps. I remain suspicious of these takeover artists. H.

It is interesting how different things are seen from different vantage points. For the worker and her family who loses a job because Romney does what he is hired to do, the takeover is a disaster. For the companies that prosper and hire more people, Romney is a breath of fresh air. Growth is painful. Maybe sometimes it probably doesn't need to be as painful as it is. But who knows?

The other objection to Romney's work at Bain capital is that he charged so much for his services. This complaint takes me back to Christ kicking out the money changers, explicating the view that making money is evil, and the more money one makes the more evil they are. In my book, letting companies fail is evil if someone could save them.

You might think that I'm advocating Romney as a candidate. Not at this point. I'm just bothered by the attacks on vulture capitalism and making money.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am coming around to believing there's no right or wrong, it's just perpective. I remember sometime in my 20s someone said that young idealists are Democrats until they grow up and become Republicans. I didn't believe it. It actually scared me because I viewed Republicans as evil. I am barely 40 and my politics are such a blend that I can't commit to either party. Both are right and wrong. Better yet, both are just parts to a whole. Same with workers, companies, vultures and kittens. It's good to take a stance, but only when it comes from that internal truth place. Staying neutral when it doesn't affect me in a real way seems like the most honest and helpful thing to do. It allows those with a real stake in an issue to be heard. This may be a complete non-sequitur, I'm sleepy. Probably when I wake up in the morning I won't agree with anything I wrote.

Reflections on Talks on Buddha's Lists

During a recent Appamada Intensive our students gave talks on Buddha's lists. Here are my reflections on their talks.