Government Interference
Big Business Unchanged
Scene: A standard TV panel discussion. Three panelists and a moderator, all seated in front of a backdrop of logos. The three panelists are older, gray-haired men in expensive suits, sort of like Stadler and Waldorf, the two elderly muppet characters.
MODERATOR: Welcome to the US Chamber of Commerce panel discussion on government regulation. I think we can all agree that one of the significant impediments to economic growth is the boot heel that government has on the throat of corporate America.
But let’s get specific. Which regulations are the real roadblocks to economic growth.
CEO #1: Well wages of course.
MODERATOR: You mean the minimum wage? The fact that you can’t set your own pay scale?
CEO #1: No, I mean the fact that we’re forced to pay wages at all. If we didn’t have to pay people, we could create many, many more jobs.
CEO #2: AMEN and our P&L statements would go through the roof…
CEO #3: Especially the “P” part!
CEO #1: Yes and our GNP would be the envy of the world
CEO #2: But here comes big government throwing its weight around..”Oh, no, you have to pay people salaries, no matter what how it affects your bottom line.” Politicians don’t understand that the more money we’re forced to spend on running our businesses, the less money we’ll have to grow the economy.
CEO #3: All they care about is pandering to special interests.
MODERATOR: Any other regulations you find needlessly oppressive?
CEO #2: Well, I don’t know if its a regulation, but it would be far more productive if we didn’t have to let people go home every day.
CEO #1: They’re only coming back the tomorrow….and all that time wasted commuting, not to mention and sleeping and eating—it’s not only terribly unproductive, but it’s also just very bad business.
CEO #3: In WWII, workers used to sleep at their machines. I’d like to see a return to that sort of dedication.
CEO #2: Those were patriots, working to protect the freedoms that made the US great
CEO #1: Like the freedom to pay people 5 cents an hour, Their grandparents were happy to work for that and the occasional apple…but these people today (shaking his head) the greediness of the workers is ruining the economy.
CEO #2: Then, of course, there are all those “workplace safety” laws. You used to be able to weed out the good workers from the clumsy ones.
CEO#3: (Chuckling)…and pretty quickly too, I might add.
MODERATOR: You know, some would say, based on the tone of your responses, that you don’t value your workers.
CEO #2: Oh no, quite the contrary, we value them enormously. After all, they are our most valuable assets,
CEO #1: Which brings me to yet another boneheaded regulation. We can’t sell these workers like we would any other asset. If I have an employee, who is “worth their weight in gold” well, what if I’d rather have the gold.
CEO#3: We are allowing them to participate in the Great American Dream, but it’s our Great American Dream, so we should be able to collect.
CEO #2: Politicians pretend to be sooooo concerned about the unemployed. But say I move a plant from the Mid West to the South. The government won’t allow me to load my workforce into cattle cars and relocated them to a camp near my new factory. But no, I have to “hire” a whole new group of people at the new location and start all over, leaving those poor people jobless in the Mid West
MODERATOR: You know I can already hear the bleeding hearts say that this sounds a lot like slavery.
CEO #1: Certainly not, slavery is the buying and selling of people…
CEO #3 …and we’re talking about employees.