Dodd and Frank once again slide a special interest rider into a mega bill. Section 342 of the new Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act imposes both gender and racial employment quotas on the financial services industry. This will cost taxpayers over $58M annually and companies over $4B annually. It's also racial and gender bigotry. The is part of the Political Common Sense for America series.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
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Mr. Franklin spent much of his life fighting against slavery and for the dignity of man. He was the President of Pennsylvania's Antislavery Society, but as a young man, he had bought and sold slaves. He doesn't mention this practice in his autobiography, perhaps to his shame, perhaps because his autobiography was, in part, completed through the requests of others that he share his life as an inspirational guide to young people on how a life might be successfully lived, and despite a gap of many years in writing, Mr. Franklin did finish it, as well as any man might document his own life in all humility.
ReplyDeleteQuite frankly, he felt it was economically unfeasible. Oh, it was convenient, but the discovery that slaves were capable of being the intellectual equals of non-slaves led Mr. Franklin to the inexorable conclusion that slavery was a waste of good resources. "Don't let a good mind go to waste" could very well come from Mr. Franklin's own pen, considering his sentiments on the matter. Franklin's creed was that the greatist good man could do was to do good to his fellow man.
So at what point do we draw the line that this race, or that sex is more valuable or more qualified innately to justify quotas? Sure, there are inequities, but are these laws about addressing inequities or insuring inequities in compensation for past inequities? If a business were run where representative samplings of a village were required to run a simple printing shop, the front desk would be run by a town gossip, the type setting by the town drunk, several ethical and good men would be busy helping with the press, and the delivery boys would be a mix of gang members and good students, along with assorted others and sundry.
Such a business could no more function than your body could build of Dr. Frankenstein's stolen parts.
The choices of a business and government must reflect the goals, business plan, and vision of it's founders, and an ethical business and government must protect it's own interests by choosing the best for that job, regardless of irrelevant issues, like skin color, or religious affiliation.
Bigotry is just too costly. So the answer is to make bigotry too costly. Quotas are simplistic, short-term solutions that like weeds are often very difficult to dig back out once set. We must have a clear stance against both bigotry and quotas, or we, like an unethical merchant, have removed a finger pressing down from one side of the scales while turning a blind eye to our palm up on the bottom of the other side of the scales.