Business is Good

So I haven't done an opinion post in a while, so I guess it's time. Last night we watched "The Other Guys" (an overall stupid movie, even though I did appreciate Will Ferrell's accountant character), and while the ending credits play, they show a lot of facts about business. It started off about Ponzi schemes (if you don't know what those are, wikipedia it, so you don't eventually get caught in one), but then turned to a lot of statistics about "big business". It showed how exorbitant corporate executives pay is, then how much the average american makes; how much executives have for retirement, then how much the average american has for retirement, etc. The liberal media (think Liz on 30 Rock) loves to bash on "big business" and say how evil corporate America is. They say that corporate America crushes the little guys. The fact is, we are all part of corporate America. Whether you work for a big company, buy things from big companies, have customers from big companies, etc. In fact, most working people in America, regardless of the size of their employer, own stock (and hence are owners) in big corporations, through 401k's, mutual funds, etc. So even the humble school teacher who is one of the little guys has their retirement based on the success of these big corporations. And, as we saw in the recent economic downturn, the economy as a whole depends on the success of big corporations as well as small businesses. Do I think that executives are heroes for leading these big companies? No. There are probably a lot of greedy, immoral executives out there. But that doesn't stop us as a society from worshiping celebrities, movie stars, and athletes who get paid oftentimes just as much as corporate executives. They too are immoral and greedy. Anyway, I like big business. The ideals our country was founded upon (freedom) created big business. We forget that many of these wealthy businessmen started out as an "average Joe" like many of us (Larry Miller). Unfortunately, the media is squashing the American dream by portraying capitalism as the enemy.