Nov 16 2008
The Overlooked Disgruntled Investor
On Thursday morning, Sarah Palin addressed the Republican Governors as they met early in the morning. Although glib about all of the things she had been doing recently, including traveling, meeting some VIPs and “buying some clothes,” she continued on to intelligently challenge the governors to rise up and reform the party from within. She asked them to consider taking care of the health care situation state by state rather than involving the Federal Government. Most of all, she condemned the national debt of “10 trillion dollars,” after recognizing that even though national securtiy was importatnt, spending had gotten out of control. She acknowledged that it was her party to have blown that debt to its current level.
While it is refreshing to see Palin without the guard dogs that ineptly maneuvered her around the campaign, and it is wonderful that she squarely puts the credit card spending of the government right on the shoulders of the culprits, there was a vital piece that Palin overlooked. There must be more than one disgruntled investor out there, more than one “Millionaire Next Door” that feels disenfranchised from the binge buying of both political parties and other ridiculously over-paid, opulent people in this nation who can not or will not comport themselves with any amount of class.
Take the average “pull-youself-up-by-the-boots” American that has become wealthy either by luck, ingenuity, or hard work. The majority have no problem spending that kind of money on whatever pleasures in life is well deserved. But what about someone who barely works for a million dollar an episode on television, or plays baseball for a couple of million a year? Certainly they deserve the fruits of their talent and labor. The problem comes when people begin to waste their money on crazy things; snorting away millions in cocaine, spending taxpayers money on hookers, or sending an aide to buy hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of clothing with the political donatins of hard working Americans. It adds insult to injury to have conservative talk show hosts come on and explain it away that Palin didn’t have the right clothes for the climate, or she could dress down a bit for Alaska but needed to look glitzier for the Big Time. Good, hard working Republicans who trusted their party suddenly were shafted. Let’s not forget the Democrats. How many were disenchanted with Jonathon Edward’s $400 hair cuts or his affair?
Investors wrestle with this problem every day when they have to choose into which company they wish to put in their hard earned dollars. There is no shortage of multimillionaires at the heads of any American business, and the rewards reaped by those on top have often been labeled “obscene.” It is especially insulting when a company president throws the company into bancruptcy, then leaves with his ”golden parachute.”
The executive director of Moneyshow.com recently commented on why he believed Barack Obama won the votes of most of the American investors. It wasn’t capital gains, for too many people lost this year to worry about that. It wasn’t taxes. It was, he said, change. People needed to feel as though the country would turn around.
Let’s challenge that notion to go one step further. Obama was, perhaps, the only candidate that saw the complete divide between the people with BIG money and those with just average money or no money at all. He saw the anger of those who watch the wastefulness while others go hungry, the outrageous antics of spoiled persons who show nothing short of complete lack of judgement by throwing their opulence in the faces of the needy. The overlooked, disgruntled investors spoke loudly by asking for change, not just because of the economy, not just because of foreclosures, not just because of the drop in their 401k or their lack of health care coverage. There are those investors who are tired of seeing money being spent foolishly, especially other people’s money. These are the investors that take care of other people’s money when it works for them. They sometimes ARE the other people giving the money. And they want change.
