Friday, January 25, 2013

Making a Profit, At What Cost?

Maybe we should limit the percent of profit a company can make until the time when the company attends to the common good.  By this suggestion, when a Walmart or a Monsanto makes over a set amount in annual profit for its investors, they would have to spend a certain amount of their additional profits paying their workers, cleaning up their working conditions, curtailing their pollution, lowering their carbon imprint, making their products safer for the consumers, for the earth, making a positive difference for life.

I don't think this is unreasonable. Unbridled capitalism has shown itself to be unbridled selfishness incarnate. I have nothing, absolutely nothing against making money. I have nothing against making good or great bank but who ends up suffering and paying for the overwhelming greed of certain companies? The answer I see is "everyone". When workers at Walmart end up getting food stamps and qualifying for Medicaid, who pays? When employees in other countries starve while workinng full time, who pays? When the toxic products of Monsanto like Agent Orange cause terrible cancers on both sides of an occupation, who pays? When Monsanto sprays its strawberry workers while they are picking the fruit, who pays? Toxins, pollution, misery don't tend to stay where we put them. They spread into everyone's life. We loose our good water, our good air, our good will on the planet.

I don't think it unreasonable that the common wealth that is God given should be cared for ahead of the common greed. Or at least after a reasonable amount of profit has been realized.

My PHD in economics comes from running a marginal household on a marginal budget and still having some extra to share.

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