Democrats views from their National Convention on fairness and capitalism

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren: I'm here tonight to talk about hard-working people: people who get up early, stay up late, cook dinner and help out with homework; people who can be counted on to help their kids, their parents, their neighbors, and the lady down the street whose car broke down; people who work their hearts out but are up against a hard truth—the game is rigged against them. . . .People feel like the system is rigged against them. And here's the painful part: they're right. The system is rigged. Look around. Oil companies guzzle down billions in subsidies. Billionaires pay lower tax rates than their secretaries. Wall Street CEOs—the same ones who wrecked our economy and destroyed millions of jobs—still strut around Congress, no shame, demanding favors, and acting like we should thank them.  . . . We just don't want the game to be rigged. . . . No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don't run this country for corporations, we run it for people. . . . For years, families had been tricked by credit cards, fooled by student loans and cheated on mortgages. . . .[President Obama] believes in a country where nobody gets a free ride or a golden parachute. . . .Where no one can steal your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street. . . .

Democratic convention delegates in favor of banning or capping corporate profits. 



Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, has a different view on this: "We [workers] are the ones who built America. We are the ones who build it every single day — because it is our work that connects us all."

My take: Workers getting paid according to their productivity.  Firms sell their products for what people are willing to pay for them.  In a free market economy, people get paid in accordance with the value that they provide others.  Government rearranges those deals and takes money from those who offered the better deals and thus made profits to those who didn't have as much to offer others.

Meanwhile, the big surprise is: "U.S. Competitiveness Slips."  

Northern European countries topped the overall ranking of a global competitiveness report released Wednesday by the World Economic Forum, as the United States slipped for the fourth year in a row. . . . This year's survey showed the U.S. fell to seventh position from fifth in the global ranking but the country remains an innovation powerhouse and its markets work efficiently, the WEF said. . . .