The Hippie Blog

Writings From The Author Of The Hippie Dictionary

October 08, 2023

ECONOMICS

This first blog post was written in the 1980s and published in my second book of The Hippie Trilogy, titled CAMMON SENSE AND REASON AGAIN in 2020.

Stock Market

The stock market needs an overhaul and a downsizing. The original intent in creating the stock market was to provide money for companies to research and develop new products and services. It was not intended to provide profits for the companies’ owners, officers and executives. The market was meant to be a means, not the end in itself. The stock exchange became corrupted when it became more important as a source of income for the stockbrokers and investors than as a stimulus creating new and better products for the economy. That is when this country started on its way toward becoming a paper, or

shadow, economy rather than an economy based on the industry of its people. We must change the concept of the stock market back to its original intent. Originally “going public” was a way for new companies or companies with a new product to “borrow” money to use in research and development to get new products out in the marketplace. This process was intended to stimulate our country’s economy in several ways at the same time. First, to give companies fresh funding to spend in the marketplace to develop new, useful products to sell and then to give dividends (profits) to the investors for them to spend in the marketplace. The first glitch in this process arose when some people discovered they could make a profit by buying and selling stocks rather then waiting for the dividends. At this point, the whole concept of the stock market changed into a large government-sanctioned and legalized pyramid scheme. At this point, “the market” itself became a business. In other words, there were people devoted solely to buying and selling stocks... and making a lot of money from the process. Of course, this siphons off some of the money in commissions, which should have been, or was intended to be, invested into the product or services. I know there are investors, the professionals, who don’t care where their investment is spent as long as it brings them back a profit. The amateur investors might as well bet on jumping frogs. Even the stock market invested money is supposed to be spent on valid research and development only. It should not be used for CEO salaries or such things as advertising, new office furniture or trips to the Bahamas. If a company is public or on the Stock Exchange, the CEO salaries should be regulated to match the profits of the business. Another step in the right direction would be to put a cap on corporate profits. We have a minimum wage. It makes sense to balance that by having a maximum wage, based on someone’s value to the society. The bugaboo is advertising, which is tax deductible, and used to inflate the value of the product, even if it is the same old product… painted pink or in a new box. Who created the present economic system anyway? You say, “Rich people did!” Oh, I see! Two maybe five, perhaps seven percent of the population established this system for the whole culture. How stupid of us! I’m sorry, but it has been proven time and time again, businessmen cannot be trusted to be fair. We should start thinking about letting intellectuals make the rules for the stock market. Big business isn’t a democracy; how can we expect corporate CEOs to govern the stock market democratically? Intellectuals should make all the economic decisions in government and in the stock market. Businessmen can administer them, but only if we watch them closely. All of my suggestions for eliminating certain institutions, businesses or actions may have an impact on the people involved in them, but I am not a wicked, deluded, or greedy man wanting to take away a person’s livelihood or self-esteem. I am mostly trying to change the industries to function so they will impact fewer people negatively. This is called pragmatism, common sense and benevolence. It is also called adhering to the idea, ideals and spirit of the Construction of the United States of America. Business people of our country have to remember that the wonderful idea of democracy is more important than their own ideas for success and status. Oh, and by the way, don’t get your ego too involved in anything you do. You will eventually fail because of that one mistake!

written 2023 

You capitalists are reprehensibly shortsighted. If you fight education and pay peanuts, you get monkeys.

My family was occupied with helping to destroy robber barons, but in the end the barons destroyed them.

Corporations should support and protect their workers, because all their money comes from the labor their workers provide

Are we going to let the capitalists destroy this free-enterprise country that the Founding Fathers created to give them a place to make their millions? Remember your workers for whom it was also created.

There would not be theft or corruption in this world if there weren’t feudalism, colonial economics, capitalism, male ego, or religious separatist doctrine. That's not saying much for the human possibilities of survival. What we all need to do is stop pushing and fighting those in front of us and turn around 180% and start supporting those behind us. Then we could all make it together. Now this one is going to have to be a stretch of many peoples’ human nature.

The capitalists should learn that if they want to be a human icon, they should be more humanitarian. If not, they will die to humanity as a capitalist pig.