
 |
|
May 13, 2013
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
Morgan Housel Admit it: No one has any idea what's going on
April 22, 2013
US man departing country arrested on terror charges
Barbara Williams: An unorthodox but growing treatment in a 9-year-old's battle against cancer
April 19, 2013
Caroline B. Glick: Why Obama's visit to Israel had no impact on public opinion or government policy
Morgan Housel: Gold collapse: The start of something big?
Pete Spotts: Livable super-Earths? Two candidates among Kepler's latest finds
April 17, 2013
Shira Rubin: Too much of a good thing? 'Palestinians' realize downside of foreign aid boom
Morgan Housel: BAD NEWS: EVERYONE IS RIGHT!
April 15, 2013
Kristen Chick: Egyptian Christians respond with harsh words to attack -- rocks, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire -- against main cathedral
Marcy Darnovsky and Karuna Jaggar: High Court to decide if you should own your DNA
Howard LaFranchi: US bracing for more Russian blowback after taking action against 18 more human rights violators
April 12, 2013
Mark Clayton: New cybersecurity bill: Privacy threat or crucial band-aid?
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom: Jackie Robinson's Friend, Hank Greenberg; CNN's Jake Tapper; Texas County in the News is named for 19thC. Jewish soldier and Congressman
The Kosher Gourmet by Susan Russo: FRUITY QUINOA STUFFED PEPPERS: A flavorful, colorful and edible vessel of delicately fluffy, mildly nutty filling combined with chewy apricots, tangy cherries, and crunchy pistachios
April 10, 2013
Peter Grier: North Korean missiles: Could US shoot them down?
Morgan Housel: Warning: Don't waste your capital being fooled by profit prophets
Donald Hensrud, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: Take vitamin supplements with caution --- even approved, they may actually do damage
Eryn Brown: 74 DNA discoveries move cure closer for three cancers
April 8, 2013
Jonathan Tobin: What Part of No Preconditions Do American Jews Not Get?
Fred Weir: Is Putin finally trading his own party for a new power base?
|
| |
Jewish World Review
April 26, 2006
/ 28 Nissan, 5766
If you want to benefit from other greedy people, you have to make sure they benefit from you
By
John Stossel
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
"Who's John Stossel?"
That was Virgil Rosanke's reaction when "20/20" interviewed him
for one of my TV specials. Without Rosanke and others like him, I couldn't
have a steak dinner tonight, but I and most of the people he makes dinners
possible for are unknown to him. He makes our dinners possible anyway.
Is Virgil Rosanke a philanthropist? No. Is he a government
worker? Not that either. He's just a guy who delivers propane to heat water
for cattle to drink. Why does he do it? To make money.
If pursuing profit is greed, economist Walter Williams told me,
then greed is good, because it drives us to do many good things. "Those
areas where people are motivated the most by greed are the areas that we're
the most satisfied with: supermarkets, computers, FedEx." By contrast, areas
"where people say we're motivated by 'caring'" public education, public
housing etc. "are the areas of disaster in our country. . . . How much
would get done," Williams wondered, "if it all depended on human love and
kindness?"
Greed gets people to cooperate. If you want to benefit from
other greedy people, you have to make sure they benefit from you. Consider
one of the wonders of our age, the supermarket. There are thousands of
products on the shelves. How'd they get there?
When I posed that question about just one of those thousands of
products a piece of beef I bought for my dinner I found a trail back
to an Iowa farm. That's how I learned about Virgil Rosanke, and how he
learned about me.
We taped David Wiese and his family, farmers in Manning, Iowa,
as they put in 14-hour days fixing fences, digging ditches, harvesting hay,
and feeding the cattle. They don't do it for me and my neighbors but I'm
glad they do it.
"Do you think it's because they love people in New York?"
Williams asked. "No, they love themselves. And by promoting their own
self-interest, they make sure New Yorkers have beef."
The Wieses are just the first in a long series of people who, by
caring about themselves, make sure I get my steak. Wanda Nelson keeps the
packing house clean. Rosanke delivers propane. Other people slaughter the
cattle and butcher the beef; they rely on people who make their knives,
their overalls and their protective gear. Then there are the people who make
the plastic that seals the meat, who run the machines that do the sealing,
who pack the meat in boxes, make the boxes, inspect the boxes, and run the
freezer facilities. Still other people track orders by bar code, which means
they need the people who make the bar code machines. Eventually, packed
steak is delivered to Randall Gilbert, a truck driver, who hauls it to New
York.
No one person made my dinner possible. It took thousands of
people to get me the food. And none of them did it for me. As economist Adam
Smith put it, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or
the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own
interest."
Rosanke and the others don't particularly care if some TV
correspondent gets his steak, yet they cooperate to make it happen,
motivated by self-interest what many call greed. Think about that next
time you listen to my colleagues sneer at the "greed" and "selfishness" of
private business. They don't realize that the institution they celebrate,
government, is far less effective at serving humanity.
"In a free market, you get more for yourself by serving your
fellow man," said economist Williams. "You don't have to care about him,
just serve him. I'd feel sorry for New Yorkers in terms of beef. If it all
depended on human love and kindness, I doubt whether you would have one cow
in New York."
Does anything get done based on "human love and kindness"? Well,
a nonprofit group called City Harvest collects donations of restaurants'
surplus food for the poor. But where does that food come from? Greedy people
like Virgil Rosanke produce it, and greedy restaurateurs buy it. Kindness
can only give away the goods self-love provides.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
STOSSEL'S LATEST
Give Me a Break
Stossel explains how ambitious bureaucrats, intellectually lazy reporters, and greedy lawyers make your life worse even as they claim to protect your interests. Taking on such sacred cows as the FDA, the War on Drugs, and scaremongering environmental activists -- and backing up his trademark irreverence with careful reasoning and research -- he shows how the problems that government tries and fails to fix can be solved better by the extraordinary power of the free market. Sales help fund JWR.
|
JWR contributor John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20." To comment, please click here.
Archives
© 2006, by JFS Productions, Inc.
Distributed by Creators Syndicate, Inc.
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|