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I get an investment newsletter written by Charles Payne, CEO & principal analyst at Wall St. Market Commentary. Mr. Payne is an African American who makes frequent TV appearances on investment programs. He is a successful investor & an advocate of free enterprise.
In a recent edition of his newsletter he mentioned that he recently hosted a TV program and made the following closing comments for that show. Keep in mind that this was written before the election.
“With this election right around the corner I think many people are conflicted. I know that I am. When I was around 10 years old, I asked my mother if Martin Luther King Jr. would be president if he was alive. She told me yes, and even 35-years later it infuses me with joy and confidence. If Senator Barack Obama were to lose it would be devastating to so many people in this country, and it would hang overhead like a dark and ominous cloud. Young people would lose total faith in the election process and African Americans would be set back three decades, emotionally. For so many of my friends and family it would be like the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X happening on the same day. I would hate to see people I love so much suffer so much. With that in mind, however, I think that there will be a lot of suffering by abandoning the system that made America the greatest country in the world. Capitalism has lifted a 200-year old nation above those that have been established two thousand years or more. This is the nation that produces self-made people, not millionaires, but folks that climb up from one economic condition to another.
I think that it is unfair to take money from one person that earned it and give it to another person, and in the end it de-incentivizes both from wanting to work harder. I’ll never forget on the eve of her first U.S. Open championship Serena Williams and her sister, Venus, were practicing late at night the day before the final when her opponent, Martina Hingis, walked by and said ‘that is why you two are always injured. . . you practice too much.’ Even with fewer tennis skills Serena won through true grit and hard work. I know that there have been abuses in our free market system. I hate that Robert Nardelli made $240 million for doing nothing at Home Depot (HD). And, there are hundreds of overpaid executives in the system, but there are millions of Americans fighting with true grit and hard work to climb the ladder of success.
I hope that we don’t saw that ladder in half to punish a very small few at the tippy top because the millions on their way up that same ladder or dreaming of moving up will have nowhere to go.
If we are going to say hello to a President Obama I pray he and his family will always be safe. I pray that he doesn’t go through with all of his campaign promises regarding taxes and redistribution of wealth, and I also pray that if a President Obama does go through with all his campaign promises that he will be 100% correct in his assumptions and detractors of his policies, including me, will be 100% wrong.”
Thus, we have one man’s perspective
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