Believing In an Absurdity
[Editor’s note: Today’s Economic Prism is an excerpt of remarks made by Direct Expressions’ President and Founder MN Gordon at the annual company holiday party held last Saturday at the 555 East Steakhouse.]
“Fate throws fortune, but not everyone catches,” goes the Polish Proverb. By our estimation, few bother to even try.
Several days ago Forbes published an article telling how six members of the Walton family – the original owners of Wal-Mart – have more wealth than the bottom 30 percent of Americans. Clearly, the bottom 30 percent have neglected to cast their net.
People are too busy lamenting wealth disparity these days, and scheming ways to take what’s not theirs, than to add any real value to the world. We bring this up not to disparage the bottom dwellers for their failings; but rather, to highlight one of the deep fallacies that have infected the land.
What we are referring to are the vast numbers of people who, through political conniving and government decree, believe they can live off the expense of others. In other words, they believe in an absurdity. But that’s only the beginning…
More absurd than the professional freeloaders, are the big bankers – and their big bonuses. They sell debt to the masses then bankrupt their companies making big bets with other people’s money. After that, the Fed bails them out so they can do it again.
The Incredible and Outrageous World We Live In
Even more absurd than the bankers, are the politicians and professional uplifters. They make promises they can’t keep to people, for things they don’t deserve, by borrowing money from foreigners. Through their charitable efforts of forced philanthropy, they’ve made millions of perfectly able people into dependents of the state.
Taking top honor as the most absurd, however, is the Federal Reserve…who keeps it all going by creating vast amounts of digital monetary units from thin air and emitting them into the financial system. Whence do they get the money to giveth? To whom do they giveth the money to? These, no doubt, are moral questions that we won’t dwell on today.
The point is the whole charade’s absurd. Yet this is the incredible, outrageous, world we live in…and this is why we do what we do. We’ll have more to say on this in a moment, but first we must make an important distinction…
Unlike your average Congressman we are not burdened with making the world a better place. We have no grandiose ideas to prevent the polar icecaps from melting with cow fart cap laws. Nor do we try to lower the unemployment rate by printing money. We do not tell our neighbors what type of light bulb they must use, where they must buy their health insurance, or whether their children can drink soda pop. In other words, we do not meddle in the private affairs of our fellows.
Every day we punch the time clock, read the headlines, and get after it. Perhaps there are better, more lucrative, and more respectable lines of work. But has there ever been an occupation that was more fun?
We’ve yet to find one.
How to Catch Fate’s Fortune
Best of all, we are spoiled with material. Everywhere we look, we see fantastic, unbelievable things. But what good are they to us if we can’t run a business off them?
Remember, we must eat and we must provide for our family. So far, when measured in dollars and cents, this publishing venture has been a complete and total flop.
Still, we don’t believe our mountain of scribbles over the years has been entirely in vain. What we mean is, from our perspective…it’s all about perspective.
While it may not always be clear, there are things we can control and things we cannot control. Wherever possible, we do not try to control those things beyond our control. In other words, we take each day as it comes and we are determined to enjoy it.
On the flipside, the things we can control we strive to improve at – like acquiring an abundance of subscribers, consistently creating interesting and useful content, and offering a variety of paid publications with exciting and profitable opportunities. Moreover, we cast our net and we are ready…if fate throws fortune our way we’ll do our damnedest to catch it.
Sincerely,
MN Gordon
for Economic Prism
