An Open Letter to the Elite

The unbridled greed of the elite is not a good thing, although they've tried to convince themselves that it is. Remember that slogan from the 80's? "Greed is good"? But it isn't. It is a neurosis. It is a type of hoarding syndrome. The danger, when it gets out of control (like it has now) threatening to implode the entire world economy, is the simple fact that there is no such thing as wealth. Money has no real value outside of the agreement of two parties that it has value. When wealth is taken out of dynamic, active circulation and hoarded into the hands of the few, who only accumulate it, it becomes effectively worthless. I mean, really, can you possibly spend that much money? That is the only way it has value, when it is being used. As the elite hoards more and more money, it becomes more and more devalued, so they resort to criminal behavior to accumulate more of it, but it's a kind of descending spiral.

To the Elite: Invest your money in the people. Build hospitals. Build roads. Build homes. Get that money out of your vaults and circulating. Tell your businesses to hire more people. By using your great wealth, getting it into circulation, you increase the value of it and become richer, and in a very real sense, not in the abstract numbers on paper sense that you have come to take comfort in. That 100 billion dollars you have in the bank is worthless unless I and the rest of the world say it is worth something. That is the basic premise of economics, which you have at some point forgotten. This is the only way your riches will increase in value. Not through government bailouts, not through tax cuts, not through war. This is what the OWS demonstratiors are trying to make people understand, but like any neurotic hoarder, the reaction of the ill is to panic and become aggressive, rather than to modify their destructive behavior.