It's The People, Damnit!

I'd like this to be read by people like the twit; I mean the new owner of Twitter, Elon Musk, Kim Jung un, Putin, most Republican politicians, and pretty much anyone who has power over any group of people.

There are now 8 billion people on the planet. Something like 1.7 billion are children under fourteen, so we'll assume they aren't involved in child labor, although we know that awful practice persists. That leaves about 6 billion adults making jewelry, designing space vehicles and cars, sewing clothes, working in construction, retail, hospitality, and making cookware and items for house decor. Everything we see around us that we use in our daily lives is the product of people's labor, and it's also why CEOs and sheiks are stinking rich.

Since the beginning of time, I don't know that it's possible to count how many inventions have been developed that have produced the excellent standard of living most of us enjoy. What I can say with damn little chance of being corrected is that few, if any, were ever developed or invented by billionaires, dictators, kings, queens, or any of the pompous pretenders that often parade around like the sun rises and sets on their flabby fat asses.

Virtually every idea that has propelled humankind to the pinnacle of the animal world was dreamed of, developed, and manufactured by people, ordinary people doing their regular jobs. Sure, people like Musk often show up with the money to get great ideas off the ground, but damn few people like Musk are the brains behind the idea. In Tesla's case, the ideas and the Tesla car vision were developed by a couple of guys named Eberhard and Tarpenning. Yes, they were millionaires in their own right, thanks to previous endeavors. After creating the Tesla approach to an electric car, they needed investors to get it off the ground. Enter Elon Musk, the sugar daddy of PayPal and CEO of SpaceX at the time. For decades, the 48-year-old entrepreneur has used his business acumen to break into entrenched industries ranging from finance to launch services to transportation. Musk was immediately intrigued by the idea of Tesla and decided to invest $7.5 million in 2004. The rest of the Tesla story.

As I mentioned, it's probably not possible to name all the inventions in the history of humans, but here's a site that offers 149 that were huge, real sea change stuff. I don't know the history of everyone on this list, but I'd venture to say there are no presidents, kings, or billionaires there. Sure, Steve Jobs is there, but he didn't invent the iPhone while taking a dump; he had thousands of people in his company with the knowledge and expertise to bring this about. Jobs may have planted the idea for the iPhone, or perhaps someone else suggested it in a meeting, and with Job's enthusiasm, it happened. Stories abound that Job's original idea sucked.

The laser, the touchscreen, and the world wide web (www) all came from the minds of admittedly brilliant people, but still ordinary people. It's time for the moneyed class, the captains of industry, and the politician opposed to healthcare for all and a liveable minimum wage to stop getting in the way of people progressing upward. They are stifling productivity and innovation. The CEOs are fleecing our capitalist system by making four hundred or more times in wages and benefits than the average employees. Giant corporations like Starbucks and Amazon must stop fighting with their employees over bargaining and join a partnership for success.

Why does profit sharing scare the bejesus out of the corporate world? Could it be the greed at the top? Does the Board of Directors believe that the people in their company make no contribution to the product or services that bring in millions and billions of dollars and fund their bonuses? Do they believe the financial professional's dictum declaring people as nothing more than an overhead cost?

I'll pick on Elon Musk again since he's in the news daily. He has wielded his arbitrary and errant power like the proverbial bull in a china shop. It appears that he has taken a successful company in Twitter, and remember that previous success came from the people, not the Vanguard Group, Morgan Stanley IM, or Blackrock FA and other partners in the enterprise. Like Musk with Tesla, they were the money behind the Twitter venture, not the genius, the willpower, or the hard work; that all came from the people inside Twitter, many of whom Musk fired.

Wake up dictators, kings, sheiks, and CEOs; the road to success lies with your people. Tap into that success by understanding that this planet would have nothing but the plant and animal life today, no buildings, no jets, no freeways or cargo ships, were it not for the first person who saw a round rock roll down the hill and invented the wheel. They weren't a billionaire, a king, or a president, just ordinary homo sapiens working unencumbered by a hierarchy.