If reader Ed Konecnik is not careful, he will dislocate his shoulder due to his non-stop personal backslapping. Somehow his description of what to him is freedom is more akin to “greedom.” It is particularly ugly in our advanced, socially civilized country to approach life with a Neanderthal, every man for himself mentality. Lady Liberty’s green face would turn red with embarrassment.
We have seen the turmoil and the reaction of the populace in countries that have lived in and under the yolk of other -doms, such as kingdom and serfdom. Left to the wishes of some in our country — the regressive, not progressive — this may happen here.
Konecnik is constantly decrying the redistribution of his wealth to the lazy and unmotivated, lying in their hammocks smoking food stamp cigars, retired and partying on with their unemployment pittance. And, yes, Konecnik, you are accurate about the redistribution of wealth, but with a slight caveat.
During the presidency of Eisenhower, whom I voted for, the disparity between workers’ pay and that of the owner was 30:1. It is now greater than 300:1. Wealth has indeed been redistributed. It has been redistributed from the middle-class worker to the coffers of his wealthy employer — 10 times greater than it had been in the 1960s.
Perhaps it was to solve this ever-widening income disparity that induced President Ronald Reagan to come up with his trickle-down economics. There was a personification of his policy in the prologue of the 1968 film “2001: A Space Odyssey,” which no doubt was the inspiration.
It was the monkey sequence. A large chimpanzee is seen standing on a higher branch than the rest of his smaller fellow chimps and he urinates on the helpless ones, much to their consternation.
I was stunned to see how similar their “tinkle-down” approach was to that of Reagan’s trickle-down. Credit where credit is due: The monkey in “2001” thought of it first.
Nicholas Zizelis
Bayside
