Not All Rich Are Greedy

Economic thoughts of a great Federal Reserve Board chairman from 1934 to 1947: Chairman Marriner S. Eccles was way ahead of the times regarding the workings of the economy. He was a millionaire by the age of 24 and a tycoon by age 40. When conventional logic was for austerity during the Great Depression, he reasoned that investments in jobs take place in a climate of high prosperity for when the purchasing power of the masses increases the demands for a higher standard of living enables them to purchase luxury items. At this time we have millions of our people who don’t have enough purchasing power for even their barest needs. Eccles is one of the architects of the New Deal, despite being a wealthy man. Just like today, back in the 1930s, some business leaders believed that a depression was the God-given scientific operation of economic laws and not manmade. These laws could not be interfered with because they represented the biblical story of Joseph and the seven bountiful years followed by seven years of famine. Another falsity was that austerity would solve the depression, which was, not surprisingly, also proven wrong. Eccles proposed a minimum wage, higher income taxes, and inheritance taxes on the wealthy in order to control capital accumulations, which creates oligarchies who then can literally buy the government thereby making them even richer. Eccles worked with great vigor for the welfare of that average people. He became one of the architects of the Great Prosperity that the nation and much of the rest of the world enjoyed after World War II. So, will the new Fed Chair Janet Yellen be as good as Eccles? We, wage slaves, and retired people can only hope. Also, will she support a minimum wage increase of $15 to $18 an hour, which will jump start the economy?